Best "Duck Tractor" for Muscovies?????

[babalubird]

Need advice from Muscovie owners. We want Muscovies for our farm soon, I hope. We plan to make all our poultry housing the "tractor" type for easy movement/cleaning/relocation. The muscovies will eventually free range during the day only.

Since Muscovies like to perch high, would a normal chicken tractor design do for them or not? Do the perches need to be higher to keep them returning and not using neighbor's trees or not? Do I need to provide a kiddy pool in the tractor since we do not have a pond and anything out in our Texas sun gets super hot?

What designs would you suggest?

Thanks.

Connie

 

[swampducks]

I don't know. My 2 muscovies are currently sleeping on the deck railing outside my bedroom window. We've got a fully enclosed pen almost finished for winter but they've yet to step inside. DH put perches inside but I can't see how they'll get up to them without spreading their wings, they're too high to hop up to.

I don't remember seeing anyone else on here talk about mucovy enclosures but maybe someone is out there.

As for the pool, mine don't swim in the pond much (even before the mink killings started) so if they're in your tractor during the hot days they probably just need something big enough to drink from and have some shade as well. But once you let them free range then a kiddie pool might be a nice change for them.

 

[fancyfowl4ever]

I wouldn't worry much about them roosting, mine don't and they don't have any netting or anything of that type over their pens. They are just good little duckies and stay were they are supposed to.

A friend of mine uses one of those truck box cover thingies(one of those hard plastic covers with windows that you can put on the back of a truck) as shelter for hers.

 

[AhBee01]

We have a covered run, and a coop for mine, they sleep on the floor in a nest that they built! I have a few logs in there that they perch on sometimes, but nothing high, they seem fine, we let them out daily, but only if I'm home!
They seem to feel safe in it! This is the covered run, before the coop was added and the tarp to keep the rain out of the run!
The run now has 2 sides and 2 houses that they can choose to be in, and I can seperate them when they have babies.

I wish we would have made the run taller for cleaning!

This is a pic of the ducks in the run and you can see the coop a little in the back!

Brenda

 

[babalubird]

Thanks very much. Sounds like they aren't all that particular. Good! Love the pictures too.

Connie

 

[poultrykeeper08]

Ahbee wat are the dimentions of your pen ? I really like it i want to build one lol

my last 2 muscoveys i had before i got my new ones would perch . One would fly up and land on a perch i had made for pigeons it was 2 feet by 1 foot . and the other would fly up to my hay loft , She also made a nest up there as well . Didnt work so well because the ducklings would fall down and then the other birds would get at them