Big Night Out

(Pictures of my fortified outdoor Duck-Goose run...if a fox can get in there it deserved the feast)

At 2 weeks we started experimenting with putting the water birds outside. For the first few days I brought them in at night and kept them in a box in the porch. Weather was high 40’s during the day and right around freezing at night.

After the third day of them being fine outside I put a 250 watt heat lamp out in their run and fortified it. It is trailer trash chic. They are in a ½ sized raised planting bed that is 2 feet wide and 8 feet long. The planter is up against a larger planter giving it one side with a higher wall. I then put one of my “drying racks” (it is some sort of old construction junk I scored and brought home much to my hubby’s delight) along the other  edge. I put some scrap wood on the ends. I don’t think the ducks can get out of the  pen even before I fortified, but dogs and kids are a whole different story. 

The first night I decided to give it a try I further fortified by leaning pallets along the edge, chicken wire draped over the top and tomato cages on the ground all around it. It is now hard for me to even get near them. The tomato cages are really easy to get tangled in and you now have to be adult height to see down into the pen. From the outside it looks like a big uninviting pile of junk leaned up against my pea bed. 

A week later and all ducks are alive and they are HUGE. I swear they are bigger by the day. I will likely move them to a bigger pen in the next few days. I ordered them a little kiddie pool on amazon and once they feather out (I hear 4-5 weeks) I will move them to the old pig pen and deck it out with a pool. By the time we head out for a couple weeks in late June I hope they are spending their days out on our pond.

Of course this means I need to clean the pig pen and get my compost pile out of there and integrated into my garden beds. It is just that time of year.