Starting out, afraid of making many mistakes. Need wisdom.

[ducksupernewbie]

Hi Everyone,

I'm sure these questions have been asked a thousand times, but I can't find a thread dedicated to it.

We are moving to the suburbs, and have been planning on getting ducks for years, but this spring, it'll be a reality, as we've just closed on a home.
The garden will be around .20, I'm planning on converting an old shed on the property to a duck house (like a miniature barn looking thing), and installing a secure run for the ducks.
The pond is our big problem. We're planning on getting a landscaper in, to fix up the entire garden, as it's just open space at the moment.
The entire garden won't be dedicated to the ducks, as we do want some garden for ourselves and the kids etc.

The plan is to do something like put the shed at the bottom right hand corner of the garden, a run, going along to another shed in the bottom hand corner and a small duck pond in the middle. We're planning on getting three at most, although, everyone keeps telling me, that will change lol.

The filtration system we didn't think would be a big problem, but from reading everyone's posts on it, it's not as easy as we thought, and we can't find a landscaper who has any insight on it. If anyone knows a landscaper in the NY area with this kind of experience, please send them my way!!

Any suggestions on what we can do? We want it to be ascetically pleasing, as well as function for the ducks.

 

[ducksupernewbie]

anyone?

 

[jknox1982]

I don't have ducks but don't give up on people helping out, its still pretty early allot of us are just coming in from chores and are now enjoying a cup of coffee

Seems to me like you have a great plan. I would love ducks but chicken have taken out my life and my heart.

Good Luck and welcome to BYC
Jenn

 

[TamingMaster]

I've never had a filtration system and I currently own 2 Mandarin Drakes....

 

[freeducks]

We had just 2 ducks last winter (now we have 12!) that actually ended up in the chicken pen for several months because the pond froze over solid. Otherwise our ducks are free range on the pond and there is a center island for their protection from predators. That said, while in the chicken house last winter we just had a plastic tub of water in there for them with a trough heater (you can get these at Atwoods or any farm supply and they work great!) We didn't filter their water but we did change it every day because they like to splash about and it gets dirty quickly. It wasn't very big, just about 2 ft diameter and 6 or 8 inches deep. The heater doesn't generate warm or hot water, it just comes on when the water gets to freezing temperatures so the water doesn't get warm enough to generate bacteria. We do give them Rooster Booster Triple Action vitamin supplement and wormer mixed with their food and it works wonderful. We had a couple ducks start looking lame last year and I discovered that worms can cause lame ducks so we started them on the Rooster Booster and they all cleared up within a week or so. We still give it to them as preventative measure because we have Canadian Geese that frequent the pond as well. Hope this helps! Good luck. My bet is you will have more than 3 ducks by this time next year! They are so enjoyable and sweet!

 

[ducksupernewbie]

Thanks Jen!

I guess we're a little impatient. Not in getting the ducks, but in trying to find out the best pool/filtration system, so we can email it to the landscaper to get working on it, before winter sets in here, and the ground is too hard to dig into.

 

[smonkeySK]

Koi pond filtration is where you want to do some research.

 

[ducksupernewbie]

Koi pond filtration is where you want to do some research.

That's what I was looking into, our garden is fairly small, around .20, which the ducks will get around half of. All the koi ponds I was looking at, were saying they weren't suitable for the waste of ducks, so I thought maybe someone here would know of another system that would be able to cope. We can't change out a pool every day, it would be too much water for where we live.

 

[smonkeySK]

I'm using a diy koi filter (and by no means is it an optimum design).

I've got about 2000 litres of water in the ponds and tho I am struggling with green water, the solid waste is being managed. This is for 7 ducks.

Koi filters will work especially if you go with a gravity fed system (mine is pump fed and not as good because of this fact)

Edit - don't buy a filter off the shelf as most can't cope even with goldfish! Unless you buy a thousand pound drum filter that is!!

 

[JennieRD]

Ducks are really messy at times the number of ducks you have verses the pond size is critical when choosing a filtration system. One thing to help is an aerator, on large scale can be made out of a simple sump pump connected to a waterhole with a wire mesh end to suck water through and a pvc pipe used to shoot water into the air like a fountain, to keep the water oxygenated. Germs and bacteria can form easily if its too small of a pond and would be unsanitary even for the ducks to drink from.

If you want to do it right, with little expense, and it really works a lot better....ask any old timer. Find some blue plastic barrels three if you can find them use them as your filtration system, using carbon / charcoal, sand, and gravel. Some would call it a home made septic system or giant fish tank filter system/ if you look online...Use the sump pump to fill the system with water from the pond and allow the water to flow back into the pond maybe with a home made waterfall. I would only do this if your creating a small pond for your ducks. If your going larger, you need to consider the ecosystem of the pond your building and what it will take to help keep it clean.

Hope this helps, good luck!