Duck house size?????

[Tawnya Blackburn]

They are Ancona. I have a black with beetle green sheen hen, a traditional black hen, a blue hen and a silver Drake. The colors are correct but they are still kinda young so sexes may be off slightly. They are 14 weeks old as of yesterday.

 

[kfitt1776]

Is it okay to have the duck house on the water front?

 

[3bird]

Our duckhouse (seven silver Appleyard ducks) is elevated and ~8'x4' with a relatively small door. There is a long ramp, and they do single file up and down just fine.

Except when the temps are in double digit negative territory or a storm is really blowing, we leave the door to the duckhouse open and they come and go as they please from the run.

They also have a ~8'x4' area under the duckhouse, which is banked by straw bales all winter. They love it under there!

As others have said, they often elect to stay out.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Is it okay to have the duck house on the water front?

For what? to put them in at night to lock them up or to let them come and go as they please even at night?

 

[Brahmb]

Our duckhouse (seven silver Appleyard ducks) is elevated and ~8'x4' with a relatively small door. There is a long ramp, and they do single file up and down just fine.

Except when the temps are in double digit negative territory or a storm is really blowing, we leave the door to the duckhouse open and they come and go as they please from the run.

They also have a ~8'x4' area under the duckhouse, which is banked by straw bales all winter. They love it under there!

As others have said, they often elect to stay out.

How did you get them to use the long ramp? Mine won’t even use a short one to get into their dog house. Also, could you post a picture? I’d like to get ideas for improving my duck area.


Thanks!

 

[3bird]

How did you get them to use the long ramp? Mine won’t even use a short one to get into their dog house. Also, could you post a picture? I’d like to get ideas for improving my duck area.


Thanks!

Our ducks figured it out pretty quickly. We didn't have to do much in terms of training. The first few times we put them in at night by hand and then let them use the ramp to come out in the morning. Here's a video of day two of using the ramp:

As you can see, they were still getting used to it, but it was a quick learning curve, as they needed to come down the ramp to get food and water in the morning. I don't remember how long it was until they were all going up the ramp together, but we would offer them mealworms from the back of the duckhouse, and that was pretty motivating! It wasn't long. After a few weeks, and as the overnight temps warmed, we didn't lock them in any more at night, and they had no trouble going up and down whenever they wanted. You can see how long the ramp is relative to the run in this picture. Let me know if you have other questions.