duck pool drains & LOTS of duckie pictures

The pool drains are working ... sort of ... They do drain, but being the size of a garden hose and full of dirt and other messy things they drain slowly. Which means a new morning and evening routine, but they are definitely helping reduce the amount of water and soggy mud around the pools and saving our backs.

close up of the drain valve & hose for our above ground pool (open)

We have for several years used a double layer of "kiddie" pools for our duckies.  Using two pools nested together helps prevent holes and cracks.  We replace the kiddie pools maybe once every year to two years.  We used "WaterWeld" a specialized epoxy putty to seal the drain holes inside and outside of the pools.  (In the picture above it is the white stuff around the joint).  This allows us to move the pools to dump out dirt etc with the drain hoses still attached and not have to worry about the integrity of a water tight seal around the joint.

You can see the ground still gets wet when washing the pool
and duckies splashing but this is far less water than before.

The hose filling the pool is in front
The drain hose is toward the back and left.

"sunken" duckie pool - the drain is low and at the very back
the hose you see in front is the drain hose from the above
ground pool.  Both hose drains are buried and run between
skirted hardware fabric to keep predators and snakes out

close up of the sunken pool's drain valve

both pools - here we are filling the sunken pool and you
can see the drain hose from the above ground pool
we have dividing fences with a internal gate for those times
when we need to separate such as when boy duckies
are being seasonally aggressive or if/when a certain
duckie needs R&R time due to injury illness
but is still well enough to be outside.

Due to all the rain and storms we have had this summer our sunken pool fills with dirt and mud much quicker than the above ground pool and it much harder to do the "deep" clean.  We may raise this pool at some later date.

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And now for lots of pictures of our adorable duckies!

Missy complaining that she doesn't get to forage
(her arthritis/tendonitis has flared up and she is on R&R)

beautiful white ladies

Darrick, drake extraordinaire, loved by the little ladies 

Beau's head feathers are always in varying shades

This little lady says, "you are an okay food and water human,
but I don't know if I trust you all the way yet."

"More pictures?  Sure we will pose for you"

The prettiest boy, needs to work hard to stay pretty.
Preen Preen Preen

Missy chillin out in one of her favorite nap spots under the chair.

It's nap time for the little girls too.

Our Missy's feathers are looking so shiny and white now
that she has 8 more girl friends to share the attention of the boys.

Fluffy bottom (Missy)

10 pet duckies and one human "duckie" bond servant

Drains for the pools

We suppose that all pet duck owners (slaves), will at some point succumb to installing drains or pumps for the duckies pools.  Well after a little over 5 years of scooping and dumping we are finally going to try the drains.

This our first attempt.  We are using garden hose connectors and 3/4" nuts.  

We hope this works but we do have some concerns about the narrow internal diameter and all the mess (not just poo, but rocks, and leaves, etc).  But we shall see. 

It got too dark to show it set up outside tonight so we will post again tomorrow to let you know how it goes. 

Breakfast for six

Just another morning in the aviary.

Keelyn, our Welsh Harlequin female, is about as recovered as she is going to get and has now rejoined the "general population" for full days.

The flock is happy and peaceful.

our duck aviary

a slide show to show you our duck aviary
with a few notes regarding it's construction

picture taken Nov 14

The duck house was about 70% done -

but this is a good shot of the layout

of the duck aviary in our backyard

duck aviary - part 1

MamaDuck and Gr-DaddyDuck got all the posts and headers in the ground for the duck aviary. They did this all on Saturday.  (Well Gr-DaddyDuck dug a few holes and painted the posts with roofing tar the day before.)  We are so grateful to God for the 4+ days of steady rain that softened the ground enough that we could dig holes without renting an auger. Gr-MaDuck's only contribution for this phase: taking pictures and pulled staples out of the top of the posts.

We choose an oval shape because we thought it would look more natural in our backyard.  This is a natural not manicured yard which slopes and is surrounded by woods.  I (Gr-MaDuck) thinks it looks pretty good.
It is approximately 42 ft x 30 ft (~1050 sq ft)

Next two phases: 

Build and hang the gate

(gate and header posts already in the ground),

then attach the wire mesh

1/2" inch galvanized hardware cloth on the bottom (skirted)

and chicken wire on the top.