or keeping up with the jones. Lol.
What do I mean by that?
well a couple of weeks ago I noticed my neighbor had started laying mulch on her portion of the far back of our bordering properties. She’d removed tree branches, brush and debris and generally made a very nice tidy lovely area.
I sighed and felt bad. As our portion was covered in branches and brush and general woodsy debris. She wants to have this nice peaceful clean area to sit in and enjoy her back yard and here her next door neighbors portion just feet away looks terrible.
Well not anymore! We are now compliant well behaved guilt free neighbors. This weekend I consolidated our brush and general outdoorsy debris into one larger pile, pulled up some invasive plants, wheedled at hubby until he helped me move some heavy logs and cut a fallen tree in half, begged some shade loving plants off my mum, and now our portion looks as lovely as my neighbors.
Because it looked so nice and clean, I thought you know who would really love more space back here? The squawks of course!
a quick Home Depot trip for some more fence posts and fencing, then me trying unsuccessfully to whack in the fence posts. More wheedling at hubby until he would help and then him completing in under 10min what I had fought with for over an hour (why is that?! He can so easily step on a god damn fence post and it goes in, I try that and we all fall over) and the day time duck area doubled in size!!
the squawks are super super happy with their newly expanded day time digs. (Note the orange and white strings are part of my hawk deterrent scheme. Knock on wood so far has been working)
Their daytime area also now has a Spot segregation area. Which I’m sure the girls will appreciate upon occasion. From time to time they get rather fed up with Spotty drake’s armorous efforts so having a safe place he can go cool his jets for a little while from time to time will be nice to have.
And thankfully my neighbor enjoys watching the ducks so sees the expansion as added value next to her relaxing area.
next on my list: pallet lean tos for this area! The tarp is rather tacky I admit, so building some nicer places for the ducks to get out of the sun and rain would probably also bolster neighborly relations.
Haha, I see you’ve already implemented my duck scheme. Well done!
Ducks are fun, the eggs are great, but their pens can be a little fragrant. 🙂 We made the best pen for our chickens using a cattle panel arched. We can then put a small tarp over the top which keeps the sun out in the summer and the rain and snow out as well. Our duck pen is still a work in progress. 🙂
Their overnight pen which is much more secure and predator resistant/proof, I used an old 20×10′ car port type metal frame that I then covered with wire and covered with a tarp similar to the hoop coop you made with the cattle panels. I do love the idea of those cattle panel hoop coops! If I didn’t already have the metal car port frame prior to planning for the ducks, I was hoping to make one of those. that pen can get a little rank, but I’ve found in their overnight pen that having rubber matting down then straw with diatomaceous earth mixed in on top of that in the areas where they like to sleep makes it much easier to control any odor. I use a dog pooper scooper to scrape the mats each day (the areas not covered in straw) and then if needed I do a light hosing down of them to rinse (I usually do that every 3 days or so when I dump and refill their kiddie pool). About every 4-8wks (depends on the weather) I change out the straw. So far has worked very well. their day time area is huge and well more square footage than 6 ducks would ever need, so so far that area has show no signs of foul smell. the ducks are so much fun, I do adore them. thanks for commenting! 🙂