Traumatized my flock

[cdnley]

The duck house is 90% complete. I opened the duck door to the actual house last week (they are in the outdoor enclosure now). They refuse to go into the house! Sometimes I understand they need to be coaxed into doing things. I decided to grab them and put them in. So they can see it's nice and safe and free of snow. Well gee, you would think I was putting them into a deep fryer. The ducks were freaking until they felt the nice soft dry hay. The white goose went in quiet and my tufted buff laid down and refused to move..like frozen from the trauma of me talking nicely and picking him up gently, lol. Now they are freaked out. They seem to refuse to walk by the doorway, perhaps they are showing me defiance. Hopefully they get over it soon and forgive me for putting them in the deep fryer err I mean soft cozy flax straw.

Here are a few pictures of their ritzy palace in the next post.

 

[cdnley]

They seem to be okay after I went out and gave them some lettuce. Now they are eyeing up the duck door to the inside of the duck house. Hopefully that means they will go in there soon.

Front of duck house

Back of duck house

Interior with duck door leading to outside (and my Welsh Harlequin drake)

 

[TennesseeTruly]

Both my duck and geese flock hate to be locked up! I mean, hate, hate, hate. We live in a high predator area so they have to be but they absolutely hate it.

They've learned the routine but they would rather stay out in a snow storm or the rain then go inside their houses. At night we tell them "bed" and they go, but believe me, they'd rather stay out!

Don't give up, they'll eventually go.

Laurie

 

[cdnley]

Quote:
Thanks! We live in an area where the sly fox is our main predator. The flock has been locked in their outdoor enclosure for several weeks already (pond is frozen and no safe area for them if a predator came around). I opened the door to the interior house (I wansn't clear..sorry)and they are freaked to go into that! Hopefully sooner than later as the temperatures will only get colder from here!

 

[Oregon Blues]

Ducks don't like change. Put a new feeder in their run and they act like I've installed a werewolf.

However, they adapt really quickly and they won't hold it against you.

The duck house looks very nice.

 

[easttxchick]

Quote:
Very well put.
I added a deep layer of hay in the ducky house for winter a few weeks ago and after they stood at the door and had a long, loud conversation about it, they decided that it wasn't safe to walk through so they flew around in there for a couple of days before deciding it wasn't going to swallow them.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Quote:
Very well put.
I added a deep layer of hay in the ducky house for winter a few weeks ago and after they stood at the door and had a long, loud conversation about it, they decided that it wasn't safe to walk through so they flew around in there for a couple of days before deciding it wasn't going to swallow them.

and i absolutely love that duck house cdnley

Just wanted to add because it's been so wet around here the chickens don't have any dry dirt to dust bathe in so i got some sand and spread it around in side the walking area of the duck house, well those ducks took one look at that sand and swore they couldn't walk on it, i had to step behind them to get them to go into their bedrooms. silly things.