Duck Houses

[solarpup]

Thanks! I was thinking about once I figure out how to do the pond, can you give ducks fish to catch and eat? I know wild ducks do, but would domestic ducks know what to do if they saw a fish? and if so what kind/age fish should I give them?

They *love* chasing fish in the pond. You can go to any pet store and get feeder fish (our store has two sizes: either small or large comets), and the ducks will go nuts for them, chasing them in the pond. (Our mallard can circle the pond several times underwater chasing them.) It usually takes them a few hours to catch them if we get a dozen or so.

Although there was one period where our drakes were so busy fighting each other in the pond that they ignored the feeder fish for a couple of months. By the time that they noticed them again, they had gotten too big to eat, and we now have four 4" fish in the pond year round. (It used to be 13, but last winter, 9 of them tried to winter over in the filter, which was not a good idea for them... They got caught in a freeze, and didn't make it through. But mostly the fish can winter over underneath the ice.)

The pond also attracts a ton of frogs, a bunch of which will also winter over.

 

[mom of silkies]

They *love* chasing fish in the pond. You can go to any pet store and get feeder fish (our store has two sizes: either small or large comets), and the ducks will go nuts for them, chasing them in the pond. (Our mallard can circle the pond several times underwater chasing them.) It usually takes them a few hours to catch them if we get a dozen or so.

Although there was one period where our drakes were so busy fighting each other in the pond that they ignored the feeder fish for a couple of months. By the time that they noticed them again, they had gotten too big to eat, and we now have four 4" fish in the pond year round. (It used to be 13, but last winter, 9 of them tried to winter over in the filter, which was not a good idea for them... They got caught in a freeze, and didn't make it through. But mostly the fish can winter over underneath the ice.)

The pond also attracts a ton of frogs, a bunch of which will also winter over.

Great! How big should I make the pond? I'm going to be keeping around 10-12 Muscovies, And how deep? I was thinking like 2 1/2-3 feet?

 

[ElleenLee]

This is our duck house and run, only a couple of ducks are kept in this, the others roam the garden

 

[mamaof2wi]

Even made a duck weathervane



Still working on the pond



Step for resting and getting out

 

[solarpup]

Great! How big should I make the pond? I'm going to be keeping around 10-12 Muscovies, And how deep? I was thinking like 2 1/2-3 feet?

Again, check with your town about regulations. Once you hit ~3 ft. deep, many towns will consider that to be a pool, tax it as such, and require it to have a fence around it. Ours is 2 1/2 feet, and is therefore considered just a landscaping feature. And 2 1/2 ft was sufficiently deep not to freeze solid all the way down in the horrible winter of 2015. (We had a month and a half solid of 5 F weather.)

Ducks poop, a lot, so deep and broad certainly will help. You'll definitely want an active filter: ours is a pump that draws the water first through a removable straining bucket to get large material, like leaves and twigs, and then through a plastic filter mesh to get silt and finer material. I have to hose off that filter mesh about twice a week. And then running it through a bog with plants helps remove nitrates and keeps the algae down.

Our pond is about 10'x15', and that's plenty big for 2 swedish and 1 mallard. Maybe it could handle twice that much? But 12 Muscovies, that's a lot of duck! You could probably do a 10'x15', just have the ducks take turns. Only let in 1/3 to 1/2 at a time, and then rotate. (A very small garden hedge picket fence, although won't keep children out or satisfy any insurance needs for a pool, would be more than sufficient for regulating ducks.) Otherwise, if you want all 12 at a time, you really might be looking at 20'x30'!

 

[mom of silkies]

Again, check with your town about regulations. Once you hit ~3 ft. deep, many towns will consider that to be a pool, tax it as such, and require it to have a fence around it. Ours is 2 1/2 feet, and is therefore considered just a landscaping feature. And 2 1/2 ft was sufficiently deep not to freeze solid all the way down in the horrible winter of 2015. (We had a month and a half solid of 5 F weather.)

Ducks poop, a lot, so deep and broad certainly will help. You'll definitely want an active filter: ours is a pump that draws the water first through a removable straining bucket to get large material, like leaves and twigs, and then through a plastic filter mesh to get silt and finer material. I have to hose off that filter mesh about twice a week. And then running it through a bog with plants helps remove nitrates and keeps the algae down.

Our pond is about 10'x15', and that's plenty big for 2 swedish and 1 mallard. Maybe it could handle twice that much? But 12 Muscovies, that's a lot of duck! You could probably do a 10'x15', just have the ducks take turns. Only let in 1/3 to 1/2 at a time, and then rotate. (A very small garden hedge picket fence, although won't keep children out or satisfy any insurance needs for a pool, would be more than sufficient for regulating ducks.) Otherwise, if you want all 12 at a time, you really might be looking at 20'x30'!

I live on a 32 acre farm so I don't have to worry about the town regulations, and I was thinking about doing about 3 ft deep? And I would like for all of them to be able to go into it if they want to.

 

[solarpup]

I live on a 32 acre farm so I don't have to worry about the town regulations, and I was thinking about doing about 3 ft deep? And I would like for all of them to be able to go into it if they want to.

I think the issue with depth is just to go deep enough so that the pond doesn't freeze solid down to the bottom in the winter. I think there will be less wear and tear on the liner if it doesn't freeze solid. 1 1/2 feet is too shallow (the water in the filter tank will freeze solid – we detach the filter pump from the return hose late fall, before any freeze happens), but 2 1/2 - 3 ft ought to do. Our ducks never get down the bottom. (Despite all being dabblers, the mallards and swedish ducks can stay underwater swimming in a circle much longer than you'd expect!)

Again, we have a two layer liner. As many rocks as possible were removed from underneath the pond, and smooth, clean dirt was laid down. Over this went a thick, felt-like liner, and then went the thick plastic liner. I'm pretty sure the double liner was also to help prevent tearing over the winter/spring/summer cycles. And then any exposed liner was covered with either water or rocks.

Our filter system is also attached to the hose, on a float/automatic water system, to make sure the pond level stays up. (Especially in the summer, there can be a lot of evaporation.) To keep that float/fill system working properly, we have to stay on top of keeping the filter clean. (If the filter gets dirty, the water level in the filter gets sucked low, and then the pond itself overfills due to the automatic watering.)

Maybe you could get away with 15'x20' for 12 ducks? You might want to make your decision based upon what size liners you could conveniently get. (Remember you want a few extra feet of overhang beyond the edge of the pond.)

 

[mom of silkies]

I think the issue with depth is just to go deep enough so that the pond doesn't freeze solid down to the bottom in the winter. I think there will be less wear and tear on the liner if it doesn't freeze solid. 1 1/2 feet is too shallow (the water in the filter tank will freeze solid – we detach the filter pump from the return hose late fall, before any freeze happens), but 2 1/2 - 3 ft ought to do. Our ducks never get down the bottom. (Despite all being dabblers, the mallards and swedish ducks can stay underwater swimming in a circle much longer than you'd expect!)

Again, we have a two layer liner. As many rocks as possible were removed from underneath the pond, and smooth, clean dirt was laid down. Over this went a thick, felt-like liner, and then went the thick plastic liner. I'm pretty sure the double liner was also to help prevent tearing over the winter/spring/summer cycles. And then any exposed liner was covered with either water or rocks.

Our filter system is also attached to the hose, on a float/automatic water system, to make sure the pond level stays up. (Especially in the summer, there can be a lot of evaporation.) To keep that float/fill system working properly, we have to stay on top of keeping the filter clean. (If the filter gets dirty, the water level in the filter gets sucked low, and then the pond itself overfills due to the automatic watering.)

Maybe you could get away with 15'x20' for 12 ducks? You might want to make your decision based upon what size liners you could conveniently get. (Remember you want a few extra feet of overhang beyond the edge of th

 

[solarpup]

You're definitely getting beyond my engineering knowledge at this point But as a guess, I imagine you could run a siphon off of your big pond, and run that to the float valve in the filter. Our pond is not filled under high pressure – it's attached to our outdoor faucet by a fairly small plastic tube, which is mostly run underground. (It only comes above ground at the faucet and at the filter.) So, you could let the float valve control the siphon. Might be a pain to get it started, but once you did, as long as it never ran dry, it ought to keep going.

As for pond liners, a quick Google search found www.pondliner.com. They seem to have pond liners that get quite big. (Note, I've never ordered from these guys, so I don't know anything about them, other than this as proof of concept of finding this stuff on line.)

But you can sort of see why we hired a guy to put in our pond I'm sure we could have done it, but it was going to be a much more difficult, longer project if we tried it on our own. (Again, I think that estimate of converting 3 days for a professional into 6 full weekends for us was probably a fair estimate!).

www.pondliner.com also seems to have a bunch of articles there, too, describing the basics of building and maintaining a pond. That might be worth checking out for more ideas about what it would take to put one together.

 

[mom of silkies]

You're definitely getting beyond my engineering knowledge at this point But as a guess, I imagine you could run a siphon off of your big pond, and run that to the float valve in the filter. Our pond is not filled under high pressure – it's attached to our outdoor faucet by a fairly small plastic tube, which is mostly run underground. (It only comes above ground at the faucet and at the filter.) So, you could let the float valve control the siphon. Might be a pain to get it started, but once you did, as long as it never ran dry, it ought to keep going.

As for pond liners, a quick Google search found www.pondliner.com. They seem to have pond liners that get quite big. (Note, I've never ordered from these guys, so I don't know anything about them, other than this as proof of concept of finding this stuff on line.)

But you can sort of see why we hired a guy to put in our pond I'm sure we could have done it, but it was going to be a much more difficult, longer project if we tried it on our own. (Again, I think that estimate of converting 3 days for a professional into 6 full weekends for us was probably a fair estimate!).

www.pondliner.com also seems to have a bunch of articles there, too, describing the basics of building and maintaining a pond. That might be worth checking out for more ideas about what it would take to put one together.

Thank you so much! I'm really excited about doing this pond for my ducks! And I will definitely keep you updated and post pics when I finish! What about plants to put around it?