The Quack Shack

[Supercow]

The other project that i was working on is what i call »garden bed on a pallet«. They sell these plastic-tarp garden-"beds" on temu.com for little money:
View attachment 3803044
Now my idea is to place those on top of a used pallet, together with a pre-installed trellis and grow all kinds of light squashes in there, like Zucchini, Cucumber, Acorn, Butternut. I worked on a prototype this week and that's what i came with:

​

As you may remember, i live on a, in some parts steep, hill-site with little to no flat land, so the idea is to place the pallet with the plant-side towards the hill and support the trellis-side either with wooden legs or cinder-blocks. The plants can grow up the trellis, the harvest will dangle below and can easily be plucked.
Only in two of the four compartments squashes will be planted. Hot peppers and onions will be planted as protection into the front compartments.
If that works out, i may start selling these in the future…

This looks great. My only worries would be strong wind + drying out faster than sitting on/in the ground.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

@WannaBeHillBilly Wow, you have been a busy little beaver! I am especially impressed with your soil sifter!

Thank you very much! - I started this project to learn how to make miter joints with my table saw. And i am a genius: I built a rectangle with three 90° angles and one ~92° angle…
I begin to understand why @R2elk was telling me that perfect fit miter joints are very difficult to make. Wood, being a natural material, may look straight, but is always ever so slightly warped and bent.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

wow cool!
I was able to candle trudy goose's eggs today, but not take pictures. That is way too hard I am so nervous to even handle them . I feel like a bandit when I sneak in and closed the door to keep geese out and absconded with the eggs to the bathroom with my flashlight!
There are actually 4 eggs not 5. At first I was looking all around for #5 but then I think I miscounted the first time, there was 5 but one broke, so there are 4 now, not 5.
We are due to hatch around May 9th.
3 of the 4 look awesome from what I can tell and the other I am not so sure, but def not ready to give up on it.
How the heck are you holding an egg and a flashlight AND take a picture?do you haz 3 arms??

I assume he is using a large enough flashlight that can stand upright and balance an egg on top, so he has both hands free to fiddle with the camera.
So May 9th, that just 22 days out...

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

This looks great. My only worries would be strong wind + drying out faster than sitting on/in the ground.

The drying out issue is why i won't use these things to grow tomato plants, like i did last year. And also will grow only Zucchini and Cucumbers in there this year. Wind is less worrying here - usually, except for the tornadic-storms we had here last week.
I just used what wood i had available for (almost) free, different from Europe where there is a deposit attached to each pallet, businesses here want to get rid of these as cheap as possible, so the pallet was for free. As for the trellis, that wood is called furring strips (1x2cm) and you are correct, may be too flimsy. But one of them, 2.4m long is just $1.50. I use them for all kinds of trellises here, like the one that i built for my Black- and Raspberries:

They are weather resistant when painted, but not for ground contact, that's why i used the plastic fence posts.

 

[Supercow]

Straw for ducklings from day 1 or not?
(alternative: some kind of non-slip material like for showers etc)

 

[Supercow]

A toaster for ducks....

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Straw for ducklings from day 1 or not?
(alternative: some kind of non-slip material like for showers etc)

During the first 1-5 days i have them on puppy pads (before i was just using old towels) but i move them as quickly as possible to straw.
They poop a lot and make so much mess with their water and food that straw has turned out as the best bedding for me.
I start with a kiddie pool when they are tiny and later use a tarp to create a larger brooder area, filled with straw and a cardboard box as a little house.
I also bring the ducklings out to meet the grown-ups as soon as possible, i have a duckling box that i use to keep them outside when the weather is nice, basically from two on, here is Blanca Duck inside when she had her leg injury:

Its just a wooden frame with chicken wire on all four walls and a roof. It protects the little ones from opportunistic predators and allows them to greet the grown-ups. I just set that down somewhere in the grass on a sunny day, some food and water goes inside, followed by the ducklings and let them have fun.
For when they are older (1½ weeks++), i have some temporary fencing that i use to create larger and larger playground-areas for them.
The older they are, the more freedom they will be granted until one evening they decide that they want to go into the dux-house together with the flock.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

I use puppy pee pads for the first three weeks. I find them much easier to clean.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

A toaster for ducks....
View attachment 3804960

Perfect

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

A toaster for ducks....
View attachment 3804960

Never used something like that or a heat-lamp. My ducklings always preferred to shit on their heat source, so i went with heat-pads during the last years, this is my preferred one:

The fabric can be removed and i put the pad flat on the ground, cover it with some straw and set the heat to low or medium (when it is really cold). Everybody can choose how much warmth they need. My experience with duxlings is that when temperatures are above 22°C (70F) they don't need an external heat-source after a few days. I had more issues with panting ducklings that with shivering ones.