Ducks Added

We have added ducks to our flock! Of course the ducklings are living in a separate space from the chickens for right now until everyone gets a little bigger.  I wanted to post a picture of our ducklings and also one of the enclosure setup that we have inside for our chickens.

We have the ducklings in a dog crate with a feeder (it's off to the side away from the water), and a large bowl for them to drink and swim in.  We placed a brick inside and outside the bowl to make it easier for them to get in and out of the water as they are still small and if they got tired could drown inside this small dish.  The ducklings need water and they need to be able to swim and submerge themselves in the water to help keep themselves clean.

IMPORTANT FACT ABOUT DUCKS - NEVER FEED THEM MEDICATED CHICKEN FEED!!!

I felt I need to address that in caps because I did not know this until we bought our ducklings and asked the lady about the husbandry, care, and feeding requirements that they would have.  I want to make sure that I stress this to everyone because we did not come across this in our reading up on ducks until I started to look really in depth.  I believe feeding medicated chicken feed would be an easy mistake for any beginner.

Also here is an overview photo of the set up we had for when our chickens first came home.  I will post more photos later to show you how we altered this set up as they grew up.

They are in a large rubbermaid container with about 2-3" of fine pine shavings a small plastic feeder and small plastic waterer.  There is a standard heat lamp above them out of reach to keep them warm.  I keep the heater on one side of the container so they can move away from it if they get to hot.  If it was in the center and they were overheating there is no place they can really get away to cool down.  We also put the rubbermaid container inside of a large dog crate to keep the chickens safe from the dogs and cats.  It's an added security feature that I love!  Just remember when the chickens are this young they could easily get out of the bars on the dog crate which is why they have to be in the rubbermaid container.
Once the chickens are too big to escape the dog crate (this occurs about the same time they begin "flying" out of the rubbermaid container).  Then we remove the rubbermaid container and the chickens have a much large dog crate space to hang out it.  I will post some photos soon of this bigger enclosure to show you how it works.  With the dog crates being something we just happen to have lying around it was free and easy for us to create these indoor spaces.  If you don't have a dog crate look for a used one on craigslist or a puppy exercise pen (a hexagon dog play pen), the only thing with the exercise pen is that is doesn't have a top but you can purchase tops online or be creative and rig one up out of a tarp or something.