Thank you everybody for sharing how you manage the night time!
I was especially glad to read that the Nite guard devices seem to work. Might try those.
Our ducks have their coop at the very end of the smaller orchard, away from the house - let's say 60 m (65 yards) away. That's because the most practical way to set up duck housing was to remodel the existing kids' lookout tower.
This makes things a bit difficult when we worry about what happens during the night but the ex-tower, now-coop is out of the range of house lights (distance but also trees in the orchard).
Last night we tried switching on the terrace lights as soon as it got a bit dark in the hope that ducks would be attracted to them and stay closer to the house - so we could easily see what's going on, they would also be "covered" by human / dog noises etc.
It was a nice idea but it did not work out, they were completely indifferent to the lights and just moved closer to their coop at the bottom of the orchard as they do every evening.
So if we really want to make this work we would need to actively herd them nearer to the house, roll out some wire fencing to temporarily hold them in this area (not a problem) and then once it's really super dark, roll up the fence and herd them into the coop (maybe along a "landing strip" made out of little solar lights). It's not a great amount of work but it's not nothing.
In the longer term the best idea would definitely be to build a larger coop with a protected run and place it nearer to the house; especially since we are aiming to have more ducks and a drake in the spring. But that's a larger project and can most likely not happen during this winter.
Maybe we could just buy a simple metal garden shed with a 6 x 6 ft footprint until that project comes to life...
Back to the drawing board
I was especially glad to read that the Nite guard devices seem to work. Might try those.
Our ducks have their coop at the very end of the smaller orchard, away from the house - let's say 60 m (65 yards) away. That's because the most practical way to set up duck housing was to remodel the existing kids' lookout tower.
This makes things a bit difficult when we worry about what happens during the night but the ex-tower, now-coop is out of the range of house lights (distance but also trees in the orchard).
Last night we tried switching on the terrace lights as soon as it got a bit dark in the hope that ducks would be attracted to them and stay closer to the house - so we could easily see what's going on, they would also be "covered" by human / dog noises etc.
It was a nice idea but it did not work out, they were completely indifferent to the lights and just moved closer to their coop at the bottom of the orchard as they do every evening.
So if we really want to make this work we would need to actively herd them nearer to the house, roll out some wire fencing to temporarily hold them in this area (not a problem) and then once it's really super dark, roll up the fence and herd them into the coop (maybe along a "landing strip" made out of little solar lights). It's not a great amount of work but it's not nothing.
In the longer term the best idea would definitely be to build a larger coop with a protected run and place it nearer to the house; especially since we are aiming to have more ducks and a drake in the spring. But that's a larger project and can most likely not happen during this winter.
Maybe we could just buy a simple metal garden shed with a 6 x 6 ft footprint until that project comes to life...
Back to the drawing board
