vacanteyes
New member
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2013
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Hello everyone, so glad that my account has now been approved.
I currently keep a pair of Saxony ducks, vent sexed as male and female. The male is a year old this year, he replaced my old drake who was taken by a fox. The female however is one of the original pair and is two this year. She has only ever laid one egg. With this moult however, she has now started to take on drake colouration (still sounds the same and no curly tail feather). It's clear that I'm never going to get eggs from her again. Problem is, I really did want the eggs, I do like watching them and love them to bits... I'm just a bit miffed about the lack of eggs.
Now my dilemma, I contemplated getting rid of my gender confused duck and replacing her with a laying one, but then I felt awful as it's not her fault she's changed. However, I'm not sure I have the space for another, so I came here to check with you. I was told by the poultry farm I got the ducks from that I could keep them in a commercially bought chicken coop and run (they sold me a 6ft x 3ft contraption with an added 2ft x 1ft nest box, and of the main section, 3ft x 3ft is a wooden box). Obviously, this is WAY too small, so now they have that original pen with an 8ft x 6ft run attached that my dad made. At night they get shut into the original pen, as the mesh of that is welded and fox proof, whereas the main run was made with chicken wire (I didn't realise foxes could chew through it when we made it). I am able to let them out to run in the rest of the garden for 3 hours a day in the week, or 6 hours at the weekend, but sometimes this isn't possible if I'm not able to supervise - we have a LOT of neighbourhood cats that seem to want to torment them
They currently have a 2.5ft x 1.5ft paddling pool which is about 12 inches deep, but we are about to build a 3ft x 3ft pond that is 2ft deep.
I was wondering, would it be possible to get an Indian Runner (I hear these are good layers) to put with them? Would I have enough space? I'm unfortunately unable to increase the size of the run. I've been trying to find out the amount of floor space a duck requires, but I'm finding values that vary between 1.5 and 6 square feet per bird, fluctuating depending on bird size, time spent cooped up, whether they have access to free range areas... can someone clear it up for me?
I have attached a picture of my set up to go with the description, it's currently half way through renovation as we've moved it to a better location with slab foundations. It's half way through being painted and we're yet to complete the pool so they have a temporary one. Also, the exposed ground is clay which as you can imagine is very messy, should I opt for sand or gravel instead, or perhaps grass?
Sorry for the long post!
I currently keep a pair of Saxony ducks, vent sexed as male and female. The male is a year old this year, he replaced my old drake who was taken by a fox. The female however is one of the original pair and is two this year. She has only ever laid one egg. With this moult however, she has now started to take on drake colouration (still sounds the same and no curly tail feather). It's clear that I'm never going to get eggs from her again. Problem is, I really did want the eggs, I do like watching them and love them to bits... I'm just a bit miffed about the lack of eggs.
Now my dilemma, I contemplated getting rid of my gender confused duck and replacing her with a laying one, but then I felt awful as it's not her fault she's changed. However, I'm not sure I have the space for another, so I came here to check with you. I was told by the poultry farm I got the ducks from that I could keep them in a commercially bought chicken coop and run (they sold me a 6ft x 3ft contraption with an added 2ft x 1ft nest box, and of the main section, 3ft x 3ft is a wooden box). Obviously, this is WAY too small, so now they have that original pen with an 8ft x 6ft run attached that my dad made. At night they get shut into the original pen, as the mesh of that is welded and fox proof, whereas the main run was made with chicken wire (I didn't realise foxes could chew through it when we made it). I am able to let them out to run in the rest of the garden for 3 hours a day in the week, or 6 hours at the weekend, but sometimes this isn't possible if I'm not able to supervise - we have a LOT of neighbourhood cats that seem to want to torment them
They currently have a 2.5ft x 1.5ft paddling pool which is about 12 inches deep, but we are about to build a 3ft x 3ft pond that is 2ft deep.
I was wondering, would it be possible to get an Indian Runner (I hear these are good layers) to put with them? Would I have enough space? I'm unfortunately unable to increase the size of the run. I've been trying to find out the amount of floor space a duck requires, but I'm finding values that vary between 1.5 and 6 square feet per bird, fluctuating depending on bird size, time spent cooped up, whether they have access to free range areas... can someone clear it up for me?
I have attached a picture of my set up to go with the description, it's currently half way through renovation as we've moved it to a better location with slab foundations. It's half way through being painted and we're yet to complete the pool so they have a temporary one. Also, the exposed ground is clay which as you can imagine is very messy, should I opt for sand or gravel instead, or perhaps grass?
Sorry for the long post!
