Author: Anna & Mark

Around March, we started having problems with one of the dog doors
that leads from our core homestead into the outside world.  These
doors are in place so Lucy can quickly get through our chicken fencing
and scare off predators without gnawing holes in the chicken wire and
letting chickens into the garden.  For years, the dog doors had
worked as planned, but then one Red Star
figured the door out and began pushing through so she could scratch up
the garden.  At such a critical time of year, I have a
zero-tolerance policy about chickens in the garden, so I covered the dog
door with a wheelbarrow for the weekend, then set Mark to fix the
problem first thing Monday morning.



Mark’s first thought was
to add some wooden pieces to the bottom of the dog door to weigh it down
so a big dog could push through but a little chicken couldn’t.  I
thought his idea was brilliant,
so I was very sad to see not one but two chickens in the garden the
next morning.  “Add more weight,” I told Mark, “or those hens are
going to be dinner!”



Once again, Mark weighted
the door…and once again, chickens still ended up in the garden. 
I was tearing out my hair and planning the evening’s menu when Mark
took a closer look at the problem area.  “Did you notice those big
holes in the fence on either side of the dog door?” he asked.  It
turned out that when I covered the dog door with the wheelbarrow that
first day, Lucy gnawed her way through the sides since she was so used
to using that spot as an escape hatch.  Mark’s weights did no good
because the chickens were no longer going through the door, they were
running right through the holes!



Holes filled in and
weights still in place, suddenly the garden was once again a
chicken-free zone.  Phew!  Note to self, look at the problem area carefully rather than just assuming I know how chickens are getting in.

“Can my ducks use your waterers?” 
I get this question a lot from customers, and my standard answer has
always been, “Yes, but they’ll need to be able to submerge their heads
in water somewhere else so they can keep their eyes clean.”  Now
that we’ve got our own ducks, though, and I saw firsthand how awful their living space gets if they have an open water source inside, I decided to look further into the issue.



Metzer Farms did a great study in which they raised ducks in several different
watering systems.  They found that posture, walking ability, body
weight, and growth rate were all unaffected by watering system —
unsurprising since ducks raised commercially only have access to poultry
nipples and still grow fast enough to be economically viable. 
However, the ducks without any source of open water did tend to develop crusty eyes and nostrils and sad-looking feathers.  Plus, they really seemed to miss playing in the open water.



On the other hand, the
study also found that ducks only spend about 5% of their time dabbling,
which suggested a compromise that would keep both us and the ducklings
happy.  We opted to provide a nipple waterer inside their brooder
to keep things as clean and dry there as possible, then to give them a
little bathing pool outside (supervised at first since young ducklings
can drown).



So far, this hybrid approach has worked great.  Wet duck poop does require us to add fresh bedding
in the brooder every day, but the space stays acceptable.  Our
ducklings have no problem drinking from the nipple waterer…and they
adore drinking and paddling in the pond water I provide in a pie pan
outdoors.



Interestingly, the chicks
we’re raising with our ducklings seem largely uninterested in the open
water.  They did run over to see what all of the commotion was
about when the ducklings first started to play, but soon the chicks
hopped back into the brooder to enjoy clean drinking water.  And
who wouldn’t after the ducks turned their playground water brown? 
Hopefully the poop-free drinking water will keep both chicks and
ducklings healthy, while the outdoor dabbling station will let the
ducklings enjoy their innate duckness.  Sounds like a good compromise!