Welcome to the Duck Disco House

[Knighstar679]

January marked the death of my duck house being safe for me to be in as the roof started collapsing on me. Then around the same time a fox decided that 4 if my ducks where going to make a great dinner.

My ducks have since then been in a temp house and pen right up against the house since then. It was snowy at the time and one can do much with frozen ground.

First part the plan was to move the pen. One that would deter predators from getting close to the pen and duck house. After lots of thought it was decided to move it to an area in my fenced in backyard that used to house a raised garden beds.

After measuring it out it looked like the area was going to be 17ft by 38 foot. Somewhere in that space was going to be be where the house would be built.

With the Covid stuff going on I had to get creative. That made me go to the idea of doing reclaimed materials. I had pallets here along with some other stuff. Then a friend got me these industrial pallets and plywood.

This is the area to build in.


The first steps where to buy some bricks to make sure that the house didn’t sit on the ground that likes to hold water at times. After that I measured and set up pallets in a 2 by 3 pallet fashion.

After setting it up on the bricks. All the pallets where leveled and then screwed together. These all have an HT on them so they are safe for this use. I know from experience these things can survive in weather for at least two years and be stable for use. So this seemed like a great reuse of the pallets I had used for the fence that I had made for the old pen.

When we did the final measuring of the pallet platform it measured 8 ft by 10ft. This seemed like a great size to work with for my main house.

As I detail more of the things I did I would like people to know I have limited skills in capentry, and few power tools. Plus with how things are there just wasn’t the money or ability to get help from someone else or buy more tools. So I was very stuck in a use what I had situation.

Tools I have
Robi Circliar saw
SawsAll
And drill/ screw gun
I have a level as well as a tape measure.

Feel free to chime in as I build on this post.

the house is currently for these crazy ducks

 

[DuckyDonna]

I thankfully haven’t had issues with a raccoon yet. But I know that doesn’t mean I won’t in the future. Most fuzzy things avoid the backyard because they have to tangle with the dogs. But I don’t know how long that will last. So I will have to look into something a bit more solid for a roof eventually.

This duck house has been a huge learning experience for me. Specially in dealing with everything that is going on in the world today. I have had to try and get creative to make it work.

Well, I commend you for all your hard work. You've put your heart and soul into this and you should be pretty proud.

I hated criticizing your roof without giving you a solution so I just asked my husband, the duck pen builder, and he suggested that if you put hardware cloth OVER cattle panel that would help.

OR leave as is and go dumpster diving at construction sites for pieces of wood that you could put over the tarp and attach to the roof boards? There is so much building going on around here we just built a whole new duck pen using wood that my husband brought home from work that was going to be thrown away.

 

[Isaac 0]

This will be fun too watch, I love anything with a repurposed look. Good luck on your build .

 

[Knighstar679]

Before I saw the last 2 pictures I was going to tell you to make the house so that you can stand up in it for cleaning but I see that you've made it short. It will be a nightmare to clean out and collect the eggs. I've got one pen that is short and I've hit my head on the roof so many times it's a shame. Mostly that I can't seem to remember! Maybe it's not too late though. Make the roof a slant and have the back part what you've got now but make the front tall enough for you to get into.

It will actually be taller than that. I just don’t have skills to make a roof like a normal person might put on. So it will be a hoop style roof. Details still to come.

 

[Knighstar679]

The next project on the duck house was getting the walls closed in. But before that could happen we had to get the floor done.

with just the pallets and one OSB board the floor felt very wobbly. That meant if it got wet I was likely falling through. Not a good plan.

There was a book shelf that had been torn a part about two months ago due to it being way to big an heavy for where I live. We took that and laid the one by 8 boards down and secured them. Sadly moisture made them bow a bit. So another lair of OSB board was put down to seal up any cracks and make it more even for the final flooring going down.


This is what the floor looked like before the OSB board went down. I cut 4 pieces to fit and screwed them in place around the edges of the board.
Sorry no pictures of what it looked like after it went down.

The last step to the floor before we started on the walls wats laying down the vinyl sheet. The stuff we had a friend gave us. We opted not to glue it dow. And stapled the screwed isn’t down until I can out 1x2 board over it after the walls are done.

It did how ever come in two pieces. So that does leave a seem. My idea to cover it was to build a type of very simple nesting box areas that would cover that seem. And maybe my girls will use it. I figured if I did it right I might also be able to use it to make a shelf storage for extra bedding and cleaning tools. Still have to work out the details and the area isn’t along the back well like I wanted but to the right of the entry way instead.



As you can see from the second picture the seem sorta sticks out. I am certain bored duckies will pull and yank on it until the floor is destroyed.

as always comments or suggestions are welcome.

Here are two of my babies waiting to grow up to go into the big duckie house.

Frost. Wiley-E-Duck

 

[DuckyDonna]

Another problem I see with the tarp over the cattle panels on the roof is that it will take a raccoon about 2 seconds to climb up the side of that structure, tear the tarp and climb through those holes in the cattle panel. I use them in my garden for the cucumbers and pole beans and the holes in them are plenty big enough for raccoons to get through and I'll bet you've got a lot of them where you live.

By the way I think your skills in woodworking are just fine plus you're learning a lot too!

 

[Knighstar679]

Thanks for the ideas! I will have to look into things.

 

[DuckyDonna]

Before I saw the last 2 pictures I was going to tell you to make the house so that you can stand up in it for cleaning but I see that you've made it short. It will be a nightmare to clean out and collect the eggs. I've got one pen that is short and I've hit my head on the roof so many times it's a shame. Mostly that I can't seem to remember! Maybe it's not too late though. Make the roof a slant and have the back part what you've got now but make the front tall enough for you to get into.

 

[Knighstar679]

So last time we had finished the sides and three walls that just left the front. When considering the front of the duck house, I knew I wanted to be able to stand in it. I am not a very tall person at 5'4". So we started with the door. Which was set at 5 1/2 feet tall.

We squared it up and screwed it together and put it up with the toe screw method and plates to make sure that it wasn't going anywhere. After that we put in a few cross bars across the 4 foot mark which was how high the wooden walls where and screwed those into the door frame.


After that we added in a few studs in between to give a little extra support for the walls that we would add in later.

Next we needed a roof. The skills i have for roofs are not great so I decided to go with a hoop style roof. It was easy didn't involve finding a ladder that was bigger than six foot and or understanding more than basics. One basic thing to know about hoop roofs is that they really need a spine if your going to be some place that gets snow. The last coop i had was a hoop house but there was no spine support and that was most of the reason why it collapse in the end.

So we made a frame that mimiced the door frame on the other side on the back wall. From there we bracketed in two 2x4's into those two frames to be a double spine to hold up the frame work for the hoop house frame work.

We had all these metal 5'x9' frames that had been used for gardening around the property so we used those for the frame work for the hoop on the roof. They were very similar to cattle panels just a bit shorter and come pre-rusted. You can buy them new at lowes for about $10.

I had a package of zip ties and we zip tied to panels together. The 5' side. We did this to make a long enough panel to go across the house frame. I used fencing staples another left over i had here to hold it into place on the frame of the hoop house. Once I had it in place I zip tied all of the edges of the two panels to a make sure there was enough strength in the hold just in case of wind and for weight. We repeated it for the second panel set and then zip tied it to the spines to add a little more support and hold to the beams just in case of winds.



In the end at the highest point it was just under 6 foot inside. So it worked out well. Even if I asked a friend to take care of my ducks he would be able to be fairly comfortable getting into this house to get eggs if needed.

 

[Isaac 0]

Only thing I would do different, Is use wire instead of zip ties to connect the paneling, changes in temperature throughout the year will make the suckers bust right off. I speak from experience. Besides that it looks good!