rich
Newbie
Posts: 1
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Post by rich on May 8, 2007 7:22:10 GMT -5
Hi I'm Rich and new to the forum. Found out about this group from the Pastured Poultry list where someone from this forum answered a question I had posted. Very helpful I might add and appreciated. Up until this year I've always let my ducks free range. But last year we had several families who started buying ducks from us and asked for more. In an effort to accommodate we have raised our breeding up to 30 birds or so and want a bit more control. So we decided to try portable pens. Is anyone else trying this method? How much space are you allowing (per bird). I've never had to do much for my ducks, they are very independent Any pointers from experienced (or inexperienced) members will be helpful.
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Post by Entekuken on May 8, 2007 10:14:42 GMT -5
I have raised ducklings in portable pens although the way I did it provided no protection from predators as they were not enclosed. I used what's called rabbit-proof fencing which is probably about 20" tall. In each pen I had a shelter where the birds could get out of the weather and I also provided each pen with a pool of some sort. In each pen I would put at least one clutch with the hen, often I'd foster more than one clutch with just one hen. I always try to keep the ducklings grouped with others of similar size so that there isn't too much aggression. Usually ducklings with less than two weeks age difference work well together, I've found.
I would be leery of using an open-top pen like this for ducklings if you have a high number of flying predators or if you don't have another barrier of some sort to keep foxes, coyotes, etc. from coming in. As we have a boundary fence I didn't worry too much about predators as we rarely have anything come on the place except for raccoons, opossum, etc. even those are few and far between.
One could set up so that they pen the ducklings at night in their shelter which would help cut down on potential loss due to predation.
Oh, I forgot to mention that the rabbit proof fencing wouldn't work too well for day olds as the youngest birds can squeeze through but by a week or two of age they're large enough that they can't.
HTH
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