A Ghetto Duck House

Firstly, let me say Nathalie had the camera a large amount of the time. This was the best photo she took, Punk on a toolbox. There were many, many other atrocious acts by the goats involving the poor old truck...


Um. Nathalie had the camera? I do not know the focus here, what was she taking a picture of. The stick? The piece of bark stuck in the crack of the downed tree?

Now THIS, is an enormous piece of bark. Thats obvious to anyone.

So as usual, I have the pictures in the wrong order. We needed to move some moldy bales of hay from the chicken yard right over the fence. They were quite heavy from sitting out in the weather, and plus they are not fun to "toss" over the fence (not sayin I can... because I cant!) and there were 8 of them. So Tad says, well why not use the tractor? I brought it around and the kids loaded it, this was after the first successful dumping of a bale.

Our pile of bales is building up, this is in the corner of the new duck pen we have put up to keep the ducks out of the girls water.

The whole dumping it out incident, this is very cool! Its useful to have a tractor, not as useful as having a husband around but still quite useful.

This is the back gate of the chicken yard, the bales were just inside of here so I just backed up once loaded and then drove forward past the gate, and dumped them over the fence adjoining.

Nathalie had the camera again? Either that or Tad had a moment of hunger, he thinks beef when he sees cows. These are Joe's cows and their field is against ours.

Nathalie working hard, admittedly she only put 2 of the 8 bales in alone but she did try to help with others. She did a service by taking many pictures. I think she is cute in her daddy's coat, its so enormous on her!

The last two bales were stubborn, they have been sitting here a few months and they had cemented to the ground.

Tad moving the bales into the bucket, its not simple to take the tractor into the chicken yard because the yard is kinda small. The door he is rolling the bale over used to be the screen door for the chicken barn but its just sitting there now, waiting for a use.

The girls watch as we add our roof to our ghetto duck house. The roof doesnt slant, so it wont be as effective as a lean too but it will work to cover them. Ducks do not mind negative temperatures but they need a space to get out of the weather if they like.

The finished duck house! The tree at the corner of the fence (this fence was existing, the chicken yard and south barn/water yard share it.) We left just a doorway, covering most of the front with the last 2 bales for maximum warmth.

Nathalie visiting the ducks home.

Singing in the ducks home.

And here is the completed pen. I used the post pounder and some used t posts that we had lying around. The fencing is hog panel that I paid next to nothing for from a guy selling off his farm. Lastly, the gate is the gate that our new buck beat up. He had to have a sturdier gate and this one still needs mending but the lower part is in good shape and that is what counts for ducks.

The ducks having dinner! We do not feed them unless its winter. They eat greens and bugs spring/summer and fall. They also will use their own pool, until it ices over. We give them fresh water every morning and it hasnt frozen during the day yet, it has slushed but it does freeze solid at night sometimes. At this point, the ducks stretch up their necks into the girls water bucket and soil it with their dirty beaks (the girls have a heater) and so we penned them as we have to feed them in winter anyways. Now they will stick to their pool, and we will provide them fresh water daily as usual. They do not need warmed water, they can swim and drink from slushy water.

Tad in the completed pen, this is a star wars something that he is doing with his hand.

Nathalie being silly, still in daddy's coat.

Both being silly in the duck yard.

Halo wishing she was having dinner with the ducks!

So that was our afternoon. Its supposed to be pretty chilly this weekend so we wanted to get the ducks moved into a new home before its cold again. The last few days have been quite warmish. Next wk I have to work on a hay barn, built around an existing hay bale! Guess I wont be wondering what size bale it needs to fit... More later!