Summer in the south: chickens by the pond

[BlueShoe]

This spring we built a wildlife pond in our backyard. It's not large, but it's been a success so far in terms of attracting birds and mammals (including two foxes). We live in an urban area near the heart of downtown Nashville and the foxes only visit at night (when our three lovely chickens are safely ensconced in their hardware cloth clad coop). We know the foxes visit because we set up a trail cam and have caught videos of them drinking from the pond.

Our three chickens were a bit wary of the pond at first, but they have grown to like it a lot. One of them stands in the water on the shallow beach and all three of them drink from it. The Japanese maple that is beside the pond is one of their favorite places to stand and preen.

This photo shows them at the watering hole recently: Cream Legbar (Leggy) and Speckled Sussex (Sussie) on the left and Buff Orpington (Buffy) on the right.

 

[gclarrot]

I love it! It’s so beautiful!

I am in central Florida, and like Tennessee we get quite warm too. My ladies love to stand in their water pan I place in their run.

We just purchased our house and currently landscaping our backyard around our coop (placing a screened in porch instead of not screening it off), and slowly growing grass and not letting them have access to the backyards until everything has matured.

My son mentioned wanting to have a koi pond (im not interested in that expensive upkeep) but I offered maybe a pond that he can sit by and potentially grow water friendly plants nearby or inside.

May I ask how you created this space, the pool itself? Do you have a pump, Is it treated? Tell me more!

 

[rosemarythyme]

Wow that's beautiful! Wish my pond was so picturesque but it's just an overgrown stormwater pond, so we keep it hidden behind tall weeds lol.

 

[aart]

We know the foxes visit because we set up a trail cam and have caught videos of them drinking from the pond.

Ooooo, you should post the vids in this thread:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/post-your-game-cam-pics-here.438535/page-317
Vids need to be uploaded to youtube, or similar platform, then linked here.

 

[BlueShoe]

I love it! It’s so beautiful!

I am in central Florida, and like Tennessee we get quite warm too. My ladies love to stand in their water pan I place in their run.

We just purchased our house and currently landscaping our backyard around our coop (placing a screened in porch instead of not screening it off), and slowly growing grass and not letting them have access to the backyards until everything has matured.

My son mentioned wanting to have a koi pond (im not interested in that expensive upkeep) but I offered maybe a pond that he can sit by and potentially grow water friendly plants nearby or inside.

May I ask how you created this space, the pool itself? Do you have a pump, Is it treated? Tell me more!

Thank you for your kind compliments. I took the winter last year to research and plan the pond and found that there is really good information on the web about the different kind of ponds you can build in your garden. Koi/fish ponds are different from wildlife ponds in several important ways and I knew from the onset that I was interested in attracting wildlife (including dragonflies and frogs) and in growing interesting native plants. If you have fish in your ponds, the fish will eat the tadpoles and the dragonfly larvae and they also produce so much rich nutrient waste that you must have expensive filtering systems to keep the water from being overwhelmed with algae bloom. That didn't appeal to me. I wanted as natural a pond as possible.

Since not only is my pond designed so wildlife can safely bath in and drink its water, our dear chickens drink from it as well so no chemicals at all are used to treat it. There are no pumps or electrical equipment (such as filters) used to maintain it. The filtering is done by the native plants.

The best place to begin to learn about how to build a wildlife pond is a wonderful series by Monty Don, the British gardener. It's an 11 part series published on Gardeners World called "How to Create a Wildlife Garden." I highly recommend it.

 

[BlueShoe]

Ooooo, you should post the vids in this thread:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/post-your-game-cam-pics-here.438535/page-317
Vids need to be uploaded to youtube, or similar platform, then linked here.

Thank you — that is a great idea. I'll do it!