Quirky Ducks

Ducks! They are the comic relief team on the farm—always thrilled with fresh water, searching for slugs and bugs, cackling with each other, and waddling hilariously. We purchased our first ducklings when our sheep dog Lena was a puppy, to help her practice herding, but now we keep them primarily for their delicious, custardy eggs.

Ducks are pretty easy keepers. They don’t need to roost or dust bathe like chickens, they don’t bite like geese. They take pleasure in fairly simple things, and they love being out in rainstorms (unlike young turkeys, who will drown themselves by letting the rain go up their noses). If you don’t mind that they are experts at creating mud, ducks are fun!

However, we’ve learned that ducks can be escape artists. The portable electric mesh fence that we use to keep our birds safe from predators and within a specific area near their mobile summer housing became a “suggestion” to our ducks over the years—especially to some of our White Pekins. They’d stick their bill under the bottom wire of the fence (especially if they found a little dip in the grass) and out they’d pop. Usually, they’d head straight for the rhubarb patch to disappear under the umbrella leaves to build a hidden nest.

These shenanigans never produced ducklings, however, because the nighttime predators knew exactly where those nests were, and broken and devoured duck eggs would be the morning’s reward. If I didn’t find every last duck in the patch, it was likely that a fox, raccoon, or owl would, and we tragically lost a few over the years. No! No ducks for the wildlife! Go find a wild duck to eat!

Last year, we experimented with adding a new breed of duck to the farm instead of just the classic, chubby White Pekin. I call them my designer ducks—Silver Appleyards. They look a bit like a lightened version of a Mallard. The males have shiny green heads and lovely gray, black, and white feathers on the back and mahogany fronts. The females have a lovely, speckled mix of browns, fawns, and creamy whites, including distinctive striping on their head and neck.

As winter settled in last year, we combined these newbies with the White Pekin females we decided to keep, so they could help keep each other warm through the cold months of the year. But now that summer has returned, it was time for the crew to head back out to their beloved grass. But we were concerned that the white ones would teach the Appleyards to escape, so we needed an alternative way to have our ducks enjoy the pasture while keeping them safe.

I began researching if other folks had successfully used a tractoring method with their ducks. We have two PVC chicken tractors that we use for our meat chickens and turkeys through the summer. These pen shelters are moved each morning onto fresh ground and are equipped with the food and water the birds need. This allows the birds to have fresh forage while also keeping them much safer from predators than a mesh fence, and unless there is a dip in the ground I didn’t see when we moved them, there are no escapees!

These tractors, however, are less than easy for a person to climb into, as this requires opening a trap in the top and climbing in. For ducks, I’d have to collect eggs each day as well as dump and refill their kiddy pool. It was time to research other options for tractor configurations! One design idea that caught my eye was based on a hoop shape made using cattle panels, with a door at the end.

Kara became the champion of the project, sourcing lumber and metal. We all helped with bending the panels and she screwed them into the base. Chicken wire and hardware cloth added security from predators, and a tarp on the one end offered shade and a place to hide from the elements.

Once it was all tricked out and ready to go, it was time to herd the ducks from their old method of summer housing to the new one. At first, the crew was not interested in trying out their new home—we walked circles around it, the group split and some headed left while others headed right, some doubled back to their old pen in confusion, and we went round and round. Finally, we had all the ducks in the new tractor, hoorah! When they discovered the fresh provisions of food and water, the birds settled down and began exploring their new world.

The first few pulls forward in the morning were alarming to the birds, but now they have their new routine down, lining up in the front to explore the new grass and bugs of the day. Now there’s no more escapees, and I can even tell that the birds feel safer in their home as they spend significantly less time eyeing the sky warily for predators. There is also no more need for the nightly ritual of chasing them into their house, which means less stress for the birds and annoyance for me when they didn’t want to cooperate with the nightly curfew.

Already, we’re discussing building a second tractor like this for raising turkeys. There is never a lack of projects on the farm! It’s time to head out for morning chores and move the duck pen onto fresh grass—and see how many eggs are waiting for me. See you down on the farm sometime.