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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Floating Duck Housing

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  • From: Robyn Francis <erda@nor.com.au>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Floating Duck Housing
  • Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2006 08:22:43 +1100

I seriously recommend keeping ducks out of ponds - especially if you want a
healthy pond and water plants you don't want destroyed. Ducks voraciously
forage around the edges drilling into the soil, destroying vegetation and
undermining the banks, they also constantly poo in the water so it doesn't
take long for it to become fouled from excess nutrients. I keep my ducks in
the orchard and they have a hard plastic child's wader to swim in - once a
week we need to empty the wader under the nearest tree (liquid fertiliser)
and move it to the next tree to refill. I have a permanent land house in the
centre of orchard so I can rotate them between areas. Duck eggs are great,
so good to have a duck house easily accessible to collect the eggs without
having to go for a swim. A nice deep straw litter is good for duck houses
and the litter makes great compost.

I have a simple fence around the orchard to contain the ducks - 3 ft chicken
mesh with tomato stakes. We trim their wings annually so they don't fly out
and get into the ponds (I learnt from hard experience just how damaging this
can be).

While they're with the chickens, make sure you have a separate water
container for them and ensure the chickens have water that the ducks cant
access. Ducks will foul water containers quickly (they're always jumping in
and pooing in it) and that's not good for your chickens.

Hope this helps
Ciao
Robyn

On 1/11/06 4:27 AM, "Michelle Maggiore" <mmaggior@mindspring.com> wrote:

> Help! I have coveted my neighbor's ducks for a few years, but never thought
> she would show up pn my porch and give them to me. The caveat was immediate
> ownership, and our chicken coop has proven insufficient. (This is all in the
> last two hours) I was interested in offering them a floating house (there
> are only 7) on our small pond and was wondering if anyone on the list has
> duck housing like that, and any tips for increasing their comfort and
> predator-proofing.
> Thanks!
> Michelle
>
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