Winter/Freeze Issues

Wow, I'd love to have a built-in pond like that, but ours are literally scared of deep water. We have about 13 ducks and 2 geese on one side of the pen & 5 geese and two ducks on the other side. The geese need deep enough water to breed in, but the ducks usually splash out so much that even in the kiddie pool only an inch or so is left everyday. So everyday we have to fill all the pools up. I can't imagine how much this has added to the power bill. We literally have a huge pond, but all of our waterfowl are terrified of it! The Great Blue Heron that visits seems to be fine with it and they've never been bothered by the foxes or hawk while near it so I don't know what their aversion to it is.

See! Huge pond!
DSC06326.jpg


You think there's anyway to fence in just a section of the pond, not the whole thing? This is the first time I've seen the whole pond frozen and it was only about an inch deep, so we could've broken a hole open for them.
 
AuroraSprings,

You may be able to fence off a section - one consideration would be if the pond has some kind of liner (even largish ponds are sometimes made with a layer of bentonite to hold the water) so you don't punch through it.

Your local extension service may have a pond expert you could call. If you just wanted to keep the ducks in, the fence might not need to go all the way to the bottom of the pond. But if you wanted to keep other things out, that would get more involved, I think.
 
My original plan was to use our old fish tank heated in a small kiddie pool but then we ran into the problem of changing out the water. Draining it was an issue because it created an ice rink in the pen. Refilling it was also a problem because the hose would freeze and carring buckets of water from the house to the pen through 3 feet of snow is not as fun as it sounds!

What we ended up doing was buying up a medium sized electric dog water bowl and it works beautifully. It's just big enough for 1 duck at a time to jump in and deep enough for them to dunk their entire head in. A couple times a week I will fill one of those under-the-bed rubbermaid buckets with warm water and let them bathe in it for a few hours.

Meant to add - that pond set up is gorgeous! Totally jealous!
 
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