Building a duck shed
We had only been on our croft for 2 months but we already had big plans! One of such plans was to establish and keep a flock of ducks. The back of our land has a large pond and there is 2.5 acres of land for the birds to free-range in so it was more of a matter of when we get ducks than if we were getting ducks.
Sadly, our focus in the first year of living in Orkney shifted to becoming more financially secure and establishing the home rather than focusing on the garden, so the plans to keep ducks got postponed until our first duck egg incubation in April 2018. However, during our initial excitement we did manage to convert an old 4 ft x 6 ft wood storage shed into a fairly decent duck house.
We were given some old floor boards by a neighbour who was remodeling their house at the time, so we had some free timber ready to be used. The shed was there and simply needed an additional wall built - so it was simply a matter of cobbling some wood onto the shed and building a suitable enclosure with the recycled materials we had.
The incubation was not a great success and we only hatched one lonely duckling who now prefers to sleep in the open air of our courtyard rather than using this duck shed. This kinda answers my question regarding insulation - it is unlikely that ducks need additional warmth and so the shed is completely ready to go just as soon as we acquire more ducks in the future. Building it was time well spent indeed!
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