The Duck House

**David and April’s beautiful little duck house**

The Duck House

David and I have kept chickens for about 15 years now. It started as a backyard project at our house in town on a quarter of an acre and believe me when I say, chickens are kind of a gateway drug. You start with a half dozen hens and next thing you know, you’re caring for a flock of twenty chickens and suddenly you’re buying ducks. Well, that’s how it happened for us and since we aren’t special or even especially smart, I’m willing to assume that is how it happens for everyone. Chickens are a gateway drug.

So anyway, we love our chickens. They are full of personality. They’re fun to watch. They poop breakfast. What’s not to like? I thought “Hey, we should get ducks.” So we did. Before we had a place to house them, which honestly is how we’ve added every single addition to our household. Kids, chickens, Ducks, sheep, dogs… I don’t think we’ve ever brought a being into our household that we were actually prepared for. Chaos is kind of our thing and for about 10 months, our ducks lived in our garage. I think they’d have happily lived there forever. Unfortunately, there are a few key differences between ducks and chickens. Let me elaborate.

Ducks are loud. Like really loud. Ducks make noise constantly. If they hear you come outside, they can create a cacophony of sound that echoes through the trees. I find it hilarious and endearing. David finds it to be none of those things. Ducks are LOUD. Also, ducks stink. Our chickens don’t really stink. We use a deep litter bed for them on their coop floor and we change it several times a year and to be honest, they spend all of their awake hours in the barn with the sheep. It never gets too terribly messy in there. But the ducks, they stink. They’re messy and when I say that they’re messy, what I mean is that they’re utterly disgusting. Chickens dig constantly by scratching. They’re always stirring the wood chips and subsequently burying their waste. t allows the wood chips to soak up the moisture and begin composting the waste. Ducks don’t scratch. They have big webbed feet and because of that, they compact the bedding in their space and allows the poop to just sit on top of it. They’re insanely wet. Ducks will spray whatever water they have access to everywhere. The wet combined with the exposed poo causes a stink that is pervasive, regardless of how often you change their bedding. Ducks Stink. I know that it sounds like i’m the one bitching now (the ducks and I have a few things in common, which is why we get along so well). But I digress. The ducks lost their garage space because they are terrible roommates and they needed a house that wasn’t my garage. Housing them in the chicken coop wasn’t an option. Ducks don’t roost and so they inevitably get crapped on by the higher poultry who do. Also, I like the lack of stinkiness in my chicken coop and that level of moisture in the coop was going to be bad for the chickens. They needed a home of their own.

David and I sat down to begin this project the way we begin every project. David wanted to know how many ducks I planned to have everyday for the rest of my life. He needed to know how I wanted to be able to collect their eggs and what I wanted the pitch of the roof to be. He had questions about the size of the coop and the layout of the coop and what my long term life plans were. I’m always very technical about my plans and find them very easy to explain them to David, you see, and I always know exactly what I want. Thats a lie. My sole plan for the coop was that I wanted it to be pretty. Thats it. I needed to enjoy looking at it. I don’t ever worry much about all the other stuff. The other stuff is David’s problem. Im the ideas girl. Details aren’t my forte. But it always makes for some tense conversations when David gets out his little notepad and starts asking me random questions while he furiously draws lines and makes notes, while muttering math words. Its kind of intimidating because I never have any of the answers.. Also, you should never ask a girl how many ducks she plans on having for the rest of her life. Its rude.

I decided early on that I wanted our duck coop to be the size of a small spring house. Victorian in design. David’s response was something along the lines of “WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?” We spent several precious weeks sending each other pictures we found on the internet while the ducks pooped on the garage floor. I would send him a photo and he would say “Is that the angle you want for the pitch of the roof” and I say things like “I don’t care about the pitch of the roof but can I buy a weather vane?” It takes a while but he eventually gives in and just designs the thing by himself while I dream of paint colors and which flowers I should plant next to the duck house. I decided I wanted a sandstone foundation using some of the sandstone foundation stone we’ve collected over the years. We had recently cut down an old dying cedar tree next to the house so David decided to mill the lumber for the duck coop out of that tree. We also had stacks and stacks of slate roofing we’ve bought at various auctions over the years and I had recently come across a fantastic deal on some antique ridge roll. In the end, David and I did what we always do and recycled and reused pieces and parts to create the duck house of our dreams.

He started by laying the sandstone foundation.

**David lays the sandstone foundation for the duck coop with his trusty assistant.**

He used square foundation stones to level up the hillside we picked as the location for the duck coop. Everything we own is located on a hillside. We lives in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, nothing is flat. If you want a level piece of ground you have to make it. He used an old mason’s hammer we bought in an auction box lot to chip away sections of sandstone to make them all fit together. The sandstone also raises the coop to a comfortable height to use and keeps it off the wet ground.

Next he began framing the walls he milled using hardwood from trees we had removed around the property because of storm damage. .

He decided on a 2X4 frame covered by cedar 4/4 boards. That’s sawmill talk and what it means is that the cedar floor boards are an inch thick. I don’t speak fluent sawmill but I know just enough to get the gist of what he’s saying without needing a translator.

After the walls were framed, David and his assistant installed the roof rafters made out of 2x4’s. The square box at the front was to allow ventilation. Ducks are very wet and you must have good ventilation in their space.

At that point, David began covering the frame with the cedar siding he made. We opted for 5/8 lap siding in a width of 6 inches. Each board is installed by overlapping the board below it by an inch and then nailing it to the studs.

The addition of the purlins (the horizontal boards across the roof) gives you something to nail the slates to. Note that the south facing wall has a set of doors to be able to open the side up to clean the coop. Its about waist high to allow us to easily scoop out the hay or straw we use for bedding and keep the floor clean.

Small details are important. Adding a decorative edge to the front fascia elevated the coop from something common to something special. It was also his concession to my “I want the building to look Victorian” requirements. It wasn’t a hard process, I used a can in David’s woodshed to draw the pattern I wanted in the wood and then he cut the pattern we drew out with a jigsaw but it makes all the difference in the final product.

David installed the slate by nailing through the slate using roofing nails and used an angle grinder to create the rounded shape on the square slates. It was a small detail that added a lot of interest to the roof.

At the top of the roof, we used the old ridge roll to complete the roof after we painted it red. It keeps the coop dry and looks lovely. By reusing old materials, we kept the cost of the entire coop at $35.00.

The functionality of the coop is phenomenal. These doors open to allow us access to the coop floor. They sit waist high so cleaning out the straw bedding is incredibly easy with a pitchfork.

The doors are attached with stainless steel piano hinge. The latch is a simple iron latch that locks the doors when not in use.

The addition of a ramp at an angle the ducks could climb was one of the last steps in the actual construction of the duck house.

The pop door is opened and closed by a string that is attached outside of the coop so we can open and close the pop door, allowing the ducks out during the day and then shutting them inside at night to protect them from predators. We use old hay as bedding for the ducks. The ducks don’t scratch like chickens do and just trample down their bedding with their webbed feet. A deep litter bed is an ineffective way to keep their coop clean. It is best to just plan on consistently changing their hay bedding every few weeks.

The rope that we use to open their pop door comes through the wall of the coop and is latched on a nail when opened. When we shut the pop door at night, it is just released off the nail and allowed to close via the weight of the door. The door recesses into the wall a bit at the bottom to prevent the hands of predators like raccoon and mink from being able to lift the door from the base of the door at night.

Our coop comfortably houses our Cayuga ducks. The feeders hang from the ceiling. We don’t keep water in the coop, opting instead to install water features outside the coop to keep the coop as dry as possible. Ducks are very messy when given water and the boards would rot reasonably quickly if they had water inside the coop.

Because of our reuse of materials and our ability to make our own lumber with the sawmill we own, we were able to complete our duck house for $35.00 out of pocket. I thought that was a great reason to splurge and add a copper duck weathervane.

David turned a cedar finial to finish the Victorian gingerbread detailing and added then hardware cloth screen to the vent to keep out predators while allowing air flow.

We added a small pond (that we are already planning to replace with a larger pond) and developed a spring to feed it a constant flow of water. We’ve had the occasional visitor but in all, if you ask the ducks, the pond is the most popular addition to their living conditions. We added a drain that opens from the outside of the pond to be able to easily do periodic water changes and cleanings. It allows David to drain the water (as you see here at the top right of the pond during this water change and snapping turtle removal) without having to stick his hands in the pond. I think that’s probably his favorite feature, lol, even if the ducks don’t appreciate it at all. The pond holds one hundred and twenty five gallons of water and is big enough for the ducks to swim and bathe in. We placed large rocks on each side for them to be able to easily get in and out of the pond.

Two years have gone by since we built our duck house and there isn’t much we would change about the duck house to make it more user friendly. It has worked perfectly. We added a solar light to drive off nocturnal predators and to make it easier to see when we put the ducks to bed at night. But we hope that you have enjoyed our duck house story and are inspired to create the coop of your dreams. Thanks for stopping by!

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