The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: Dans on May 07, 2016, 11:24:32 pm
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Hi all,
We are thinking about digging a pond to help drain our land and use it for our geese (3 soon to be 4) and possibly ducks later down the line.
I don't want to do something so small that it is no good, what size of pond do people recommend in order for it to not get too full of muck. We were hoping to have some plants in there to help clean the water but I don't know how well that would work with geese and ducks.
Any advice?
Dans
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Mine is about 4 meters diameter, sloped in to 1.5 meters in the middle, but it filled naturally, didn't need a liner and goes up and down with the water table and rain. it has a flat area of about a meter all round, with a bank about half a meter high round two thirds of it. I only have four ducks and they've only been on it a few months but already they have decimated not just the weeds but most of the plants that i had been growing :'( I love my hens and ducks but I'm disappointed about the plants, many of which were gifts. Only a few have survived. :'( :'(
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My friends had a 310 litre blue food barrel cut diagonally over it's length to giver two halvers with a drain point at the end of one . The diagonal half was set in a simple wooden cradle that Don made with the frame on skids. Done so the ducks could walk up a 15 inch wide gang plank to get in & out at the shallow end .
Once a week he'd drain the thing , power or hose wash it , move it to a new site and refill it .
Don said that this was his best solution to stop the ground getting muddy in wet weather . It also allowed him to pull it around the orchard to a new site thus fertilizing the orchard bit by bit & keeping the weeds & grass down .
His ducks & geese had night time closed up shelters with slatted floors for ventilation as much as anything , they were also on skids for the same reason . He made them so the tops hinged open to one side to allow him to clean the slats off , before moving them on to a new place.
Don helped me set up with four geese his best advice was :-
Whatever you do start feeding them long before the grass loses its nutritiousness , often a lot of ducks & geese are almost starved before a lot of owners realise it .
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That sounds great advice.
In my experience, make a good about the sze of a bathtub and the geese and ducks will nibble around the edges making it huge over the course of a season
Mine must be 12ft square at least by now. If water drains in and there is an outlet as well, the water changes itself reasonably well except when there is little rain, but plants don't stand much chance! Maybe bullrushes would, having said that.
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Thanks guys.
We've been out and measured the space that we're thinking of for the pond. It's about 16m by 8m, which seems huge.
Can we get away without a liner or will it dry out?
Hevxxx I like the idea of it being smaller to start and getting bigger but we wouldn't be able to line it then would we?
Dans
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No, but it should stay full if water is draining in, unless you have very light soil.
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Our stream could easy be diverted to form a duck and geese pond but it would drain back into the preferred route of the stream that flows through our neighbour's land. He keeps Limousin rouge cattle and would prefer that our duck waste was not drunk by his cattle. Seems reasonable to me s the ducks and geese so each have plastic sandpits that we fill with fresh water every few days. Ducks and geese seem happy enough and we keep them out of the stream.