The Taj Ma Hal of Duck Coops

[BrokenTrack]

We like our ducks here, partly because they LOVE to eat ticks, partly because they take care of slugs, some because they eat frogs and toads, but absolutely LOVE them because they eat snakes. Since having ducks, I have yet to see a snake where they roam. We do not have poisonous snake here granted, but I still hate snakes, hence the reason why I LOVE ducks. They are more friendly then chickens, are far more social, and still give us eggs. We have chickens too, but prefer the ducks.

But my wife is getting more, so we figured we better get a new duck coop. I bulldozed the old one, and built this one in its place. It is the same size (12 x 8 feet), but has a wider door, and has more light inside it. I got some stuff to do to finish it up, like trim out the eves, and put outlets and lights inside the coop, but to my surprise it turned out to be a nice coop. Total cost was $200, $180 for the steel roofing, and $20 for spikes. The rest of the stuff I had kicking around.

 

[Thomas]

How many ducks do you have?

 

[BrokenTrack]

Right now we are down to ONE, but she has 15 more flock mates coming on Tuesday.

 

[otlski]

Hey BT, makes sense - your favoring ducks over chickens. Questions, if they are allowed to roam, how do they avoid foxes, bobcats, etc? What is you loss rate?

 

[oosik]

I would watch carefully. With something that nice. The ducks may just sleep under a bush and rent out the Taj.......

 

[BrokenTrack]

Hey BT, makes sense - your favoring ducks over chickens. Questions, if they are allowed to roam, how do they avoid foxes, bobcats, etc? What is you loss rate?

Yeah, they are allowed to roam.

The "loss" is kind of interesting. We lost the most from our own dog back when we had some ducklings years ago. Normally we just incubate our own eggs, but a few years ago (like this year) be bought some ducklings. We came home to find the dog killing the ducks.

"Take the dog for a walk", my wife says, so I did, one of those two-way hikes for me, and a one way hike for the dog.

But our losses to predators have never been high. In fact in all the years we had sheep, we only lost (1) lamb to a crow, and that was before we got our current dog. It was a newborn lamb, and the crows pecked the bloody lamb to death. After we got our dog though, we have never had another loss. She has killed (2) fox, (2) coyote, and chased off an eagle.

 

[s219]

We had ducks for a while and I enjoyed them, they were very friendly and would follow me around the property during the day. While I was building our back patio, they hung out under the porch and watched (and learned new swear words).

 

[EddieWalker]

Nice looking coop. My big chicken coop is real close to my small pond, wich is 3/4 of an acre. I have a dozen peking ducks, 4 cambells, a ruen andd 6 swan geese along with the hundred chickens and two turkeys. The ducks rarely go into the coop, and when they do, it's just the peking ducks and they are out almost as fast as they go in. It's all single file, and kind of comical to watch. I have a small island in the pond, but they all ignore it most of the time. They all seem to prefer to sleep on the shore under some pine trees. They pick their spot. During the day when they are not swimming, or napping, they are out in the pasture, tearing up horse poo and digging through the packed down hay that the horses didn't eat, but trampled into the ground. I think thats a good spot for bugs and they do love their bugs!!!

A long time ago I think I heard something about Benjamin Franklin being a big fan of raising ducks and saying something about there not being such a thing as too many slugs, only that you didn't have enough ducks. I tried finding that quote and failed, but it still sticks in my head for some reason. I just can't prove it.

 

[oosik]

I have a ten acre lake on the property. Many ducks of various types. Loooong ago my FIL bought four "tame" white ducks. They looked great. Floating around and quacking out on the lake. Then came their dark side. I have around 400 to 500 cliff swallows that annually nest on one of the basaltic lava cliffs at the edge of the lake. Those @#$% white ducks were knocking the mud nests off the cliff face and EATING the baby swallows.

I put a quick end to that........... Told my FIL that they flew off with a small flock of Mallards.

 

[BrokenTrack]

For ducks, we have had Roane's and Kakahi Campbells, and for chickens it was Red *** Links.

I live on top of a hill, so no ponds here, but I do have place for one. I just need to bulldoze it. It just has not hit priority yet, but I did clear it a few years ago of trees, and when I bulldozed the stumps, it was wet enough to get the little bulldozer stuck.

I am not sure how big it is: perhaps 100 x 300 feet, so about 3/4 of an acre? I was thinking about leaving a pond in the middle of it, so it is good to know that the ducks do not care, so I will not include that.

This is where the pond will go...someday...

 

[EddieWalker]

Worst thing to get unstuck is a dozer!!!!

 

[BrokenTrack]

Worst thing to get unstuck is a dozer!!!!

I just use my Kubota to pull them out! (LOL)
(Extra points if you noticed my wife is doing so while wearing her wedding dress! :cool2:

 

[EddieWalker]

Funny, but you switched dozers for that wedding picture!!!!

 

[BrokenTrack]

Funny, but you switched dozers for that wedding picture!!!!

I use the John Deere 850 for pulling the stumps, and the John Deere 450 for grading the soil smooth after the stumps are removed. They work pretty well together like that. One has got brunt, but is slow, while the smaller dozer could not push a stump if it had to, but is very quick and snappy at grading.

 

[Piston]

Yeah, they are allowed to roam.

"Take the dog for a walk", my wife says, so I did, one of those two-way hikes for me, and a one way hike for the dog.

Am I reading this wrong? You killed your dog because it killed some ducks? And it was your wife's idea?

 

[CobyRupert]

We had, and have chickens. Then some friends gave us a couple ducks, and they hatched out a whole brood. Next thing we know we have about 9-10 ducks.

They were the biggest bunch of a-holes, second only to geese.

You’d walk out of the house to the garage, they’d be 70’ feet off to the side, not even in the direction you’re walking and start squawking “Oh no! You’re chasing me! Stop chasing me, Stop! Stop!” Attention hounds doth protest too much. Just shut up!

But no, if you want to drive out of the driveway, they’d be: ”Hey gang, now’s a good time to waddle over there in front of the car. Remember everybody, take your time.”

Eventually the chicks got big enough that the sons/brothers would noisily gang rape their sisters and mother in a big squawking production number. They were relentless day after day. Only so many incestuous duck gang bangs a person can be subjected to before enough is enough.
Luckily most eventually flew off or coyotes and fox got the rest.

Good riddance!

 

[EddieWalker]

For anybody wanting to raise ducks or chickens, the above statement about the gang raping is a real problem if you have too many boys. We hatch about a hundred chickens every year and the day that the roosters switch flips in their heads, I kill them. Same with ducks, but we rarly hatch ducks and what we have now is well balanced without any issues. One out of 20 roosters might be nice enogh to let live and do their job with the hens. If you don't want to raise chicks, do not have roosters or drakes. There is no benifit to having male ducks or chickens. They run themselves down to nothing, so there isn't any meat worth the effort to pluck them, and what you do get, isn't even good enough for crock pot dog food.

 

[BrokenTrack]

For anybody wanting to raise ducks or chickens, the above statement about the gang raping is a real problem if you have too many boys. We hatch about a hundred chickens every year and the day that the roosters switch flips in their heads, I kill them. Same with ducks, but we rarly hatch ducks and what we have now is well balanced without any issues. One out of 20 roosters might be nice enogh to let live and do their job with the hens. If you don't want to raise chicks, do not have roosters or drakes. There is no benifit to having male ducks or chickens. They run themselves down to nothing, so there isn't any meat worth the effort to pluck them, and what you do get, isn't even good enough for crock pot dog food.

That is what we do as well.

We have a farm, so we just cannot have problem animals. It is that way with sheep too. We have only had a few (3) nasty rams, but when they get that way, we put them down. I am not having my back or knees taken out by a mean ram. The copay alone would be more costly than the $200 ram. And I am taking care of the problem too. I am not going to pass a problem animal off to someone else.