We live just north of Houston. Our two ducks have been outside all "winter"... but night time temps are usually 40-60F with the coldest ducks have ever been out in being about 30F. Tonight, it's supposed to hit 20F, the next night it's supposed to drop all the way to 10F and there's supposed to be ice/sleet as part of this storm. I've lived in south Texas for 26 years and never seen it hit 10 degrees! A couple weeks ago, it got into the freaking 80s ಠ_ಠ.
I love our ducks to pieces. They're beyond adorable... but let's face it, they dumb. Rain or sun, heat or cold, they just lay down in the grass to sleep, usually near our bedroom window (I think they like hearing us/music/tv, as that's where we spend all our time).
When I moved them outside, they started in an x-pen for about a month, with their pool in it and a cozy, well insulated dog house attached, to establish a "home base" before giving them free roam of our half-acre yard. Even then, they never once took advantage of the shelter despite going in there to eat from their feeder. They still have the dog house, pool, food and water there but the pen stays open and they go where they want. My husband has a broken ankle, which prevents using a tag-team approach to corner ducks into the pen so I can bring them inside (it's 50 inside 'cause our heat is out, so it's not like they'd get over heated from wearing winter coats inside) and they'll come near me but won't let me catch them if they can thwart me.
I know the most important factor with outdoor animals and extreme hot or cold is that they first get put outside during spring or fall, allowing them time to adjust their fur or feathers for summer and winter... but as I said, this is way colder than anything they've experienced. Basically, I need to know if they'll be ok through a storm in a part of the country that thinks 50 degrees is heavy winter coat weather and looks at someone in a t-shirt and sandals in that temperature like they're certifiable, lol.
They don't necessarily stay in the same spot each night, just in the same general vicinity. I'm gonna haul a bale of straw over there and rip it up into a pile, but I honestly don't trust them to be smart enough to bed down in it...
I love our ducks to pieces. They're beyond adorable... but let's face it, they dumb. Rain or sun, heat or cold, they just lay down in the grass to sleep, usually near our bedroom window (I think they like hearing us/music/tv, as that's where we spend all our time).
When I moved them outside, they started in an x-pen for about a month, with their pool in it and a cozy, well insulated dog house attached, to establish a "home base" before giving them free roam of our half-acre yard. Even then, they never once took advantage of the shelter despite going in there to eat from their feeder. They still have the dog house, pool, food and water there but the pen stays open and they go where they want. My husband has a broken ankle, which prevents using a tag-team approach to corner ducks into the pen so I can bring them inside (it's 50 inside 'cause our heat is out, so it's not like they'd get over heated from wearing winter coats inside) and they'll come near me but won't let me catch them if they can thwart me.
I know the most important factor with outdoor animals and extreme hot or cold is that they first get put outside during spring or fall, allowing them time to adjust their fur or feathers for summer and winter... but as I said, this is way colder than anything they've experienced. Basically, I need to know if they'll be ok through a storm in a part of the country that thinks 50 degrees is heavy winter coat weather and looks at someone in a t-shirt and sandals in that temperature like they're certifiable, lol.
They don't necessarily stay in the same spot each night, just in the same general vicinity. I'm gonna haul a bale of straw over there and rip it up into a pile, but I honestly don't trust them to be smart enough to bed down in it...
). Darn ducks. I just re-checked the weather, though, and now they're only saying 31° tonight. Freya and Marshall Mathers will be just fine in that, it's nothing new.
