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[HeadRooster]

Hi, this is my first post, I come to this website often as I have chickens.
I recently bought three Pekins and may butcher them in late June, but if I decided to keep them, I want to know if my plan makes sense. I am thinking of building a floating house that will be in my pond. About 4 feet by 4 feet. My pond is 3/4 acre in my backyard on a suburban lot. We have the pond fenced off but do see household cats from time to time and a little small dog. There have been racoons seen near the area before, but not often. We do see hawks, the winter months have more hawks. I have gotten most of the turtles out of the pond. I would have two lines on the floating house so it stays out near the middle of the pond and I could pull it in when I needed to. If I kept the ducks, my goal would be to enhance the pond area by having the ducks around, but I dont want to just throw them out there and have them killed. On the other hand, I did not really want to build a duck run and house.
What do you think? Do you have any ideas I might not have thought of?
Thank you.

 

[Wifezilla]

I like the idea of the floating island. It does seem to help with predator issues from what others have said. If you can pull it in, that would take care of the cleaning issue.

As for a house, they really only need 3 walls and a roof for really bad weather.

 

[RavenStorm]

I believe racoons can swim. If I'm right and one comes across your floating duck home it will be able to swim right up to it.

Honestly, if you have a pond your ducks will rarely ever be in the house, and 4x4 for sleeping space is a bit much for 3 ducks (but you know us BYCers, we will convince you to build it bigger and get more!). I think it would be a lot less hassle to build and maintain a small hutch that has enough sleeping space for the ducks, maybe surrounded by some chicken wire (not a real run, just extra protection at night).

 

[HeadRooster]

If I did build a duck house and run, would the ducks go into it at night like chickens return before dark to their coop?
If I had them on the pond, how would I get them to go into the duck run to be locked up safe and sound at night?

Man, chickens seem so much easier to deal with.

 

[Duck Keeper]

Quote:
But ducks are so darn cute!

Their fuzzy ducklings, cute little bills... AND THE QUACKING.
Which I like, not too sure about everybody else though.

 

[DuckLady]

We lock our ducks and geese up every night.

Chicken wire will give them no protection against a hungry raccoon and just one snapping turtle can cause horrible injuries to even a grown duck.

Ducks are high on the prey list, so they will need that extra protection. Once the raccoons and other predators know you have them, they will come out of the woodwork.

Look here for ideas on a floating island
http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/1834701