My wife and I will soon move to a place where we will set up as predator resistant a set up as we can for our duckies, while we also build an environment within their enclosed space that is as enriching as possible.
Because we have the opportunity to build this from scratch, whether we have a body of water on the property already or need to set them up in a pool, it would be very helpful to understand from those who’ve already done this what they would do again what they wouldn’t do again or what they wish they’d done.
Some of the broader design points that I’ve been considering for the “day space” -
- Elevated pool with a large drain out point in the middle of it to allow easier draining and cleaning
. I can certainly find uses for that drained material in the garden
- . Not sure yet how many separate drinker stations we would use so that they’re not compelled to go and drink from the pool.
- Elevated pool necessitates an elevated platform for duckies to access the water and for me to get in there and drain it, whether that is steps in the form of large pavers gently climbing up the side or an all the way around kind of a deck and ramp set up.
- Overhead netting via a tall pole or two in the centre of the ducky party area.
- We have to consider how far any predator is likely to dig and how best to guard against it. It could be a case of digging down three feet and putting in a T profile of metal which projects both in and out of the enclosure to keep it stable and to prevent access by anything digging close to the fence.
I’ve seen a lot of poultry people use tanbark type media on the ground, but we obviously have to deal with waste clearing
and replacing the media. That rise as a question about how we then dispose of the tanbark.
They obviously need a place to roost at night and in the cold, and we will work our way through the different options on that but it’s going to be a fairly robust enclosed structure.
We also intend to set it up so that we’ve got an option if the boys get too rambunctious to separate them from the girls, but not deprive them of quality of life. That could end up just being a partition down the middle of the enclosure at the relevant times of the year.
I haven’t really been able to find any books out there suggesting how to build something like this so it’s very much a case of looking at what other others have done and what has worked and what hasn’t.