Overheating ducks

We lost 2 ducks to overheating, today. It was, I believe, my fault. John and I are both sick with salmonella (Walmart Onions - raw, before we'd heard anything about the recall). So, we're miserable, and struggling just to keep up with keeping all the critters fed and hydrated. This morning, I could barely drag myself out if bed, and didn't get outside until about 1pm. I opened the barn door, and there they were. Two dead, 7 sitting, with their beaks open. I'm feeling horribly upset by it, because we tried to cancel the order, because of a last minute change in our situation that left us TOTALLY unprepared for them. We finally managed to move them from the garage to the barn, last week - but, there's no way to cool the barn, other than opening the door - which leaves them susceptible to predation. The only other place I can think of, to put them, is in the chicken run - but John is afraid they'll turn it into a huge mess, unsafe for the chickens.

We had all the poultry in one huge makeshift aviary, complete with a pond, when I was a kid - but this chicken run is tiny, by comparison, and John's concern is valid. I'm sick as hell, in so damn much pain that just getting up the hill to the barn, I have to stop and take a rest. John is no better off. Neither of us has enough combined clarity & creativity to figure this out, right now. It has to be doable in a few spurts of a minutes, by one nearly incapacitated person, without calling in any help. Ideas, please?

Grab the drill and drill a bunch of ventilation holes up high in the wood siding?

Remove a board, up high and either split it and screw half back up and/or cover with hardware cloth sandwiched between wood (screw thru wood, mesh, side of structure)?

Make sure ventilation is first up high, on at least two sides; if possible, repeat down below so it can suck in cooler air, as heated air rises and evacuates - this will create a "breeze" as well.

The chickens will cope for a week or so it will do no harm, slightly uncomfortable chickens or dead ducks? The only caveat is if they are ducklings, and then the chickens will probably kill them. We kept muscovys and chickens together and yes it gets to be a mess, but for the moment when you are incapacitated throw some extra straw/bedding in each day to cover it up and sort it out when you are better.

There is no wood. The 'barn' is an old metal garage, and the only door is the heavy car door. Right now, they're in my puppy's 30" tall playpen (which keeps the chickens out, while they freerange), with straw bedding, and the food pan and water font are contained in a small kiddie pool, that we drag out and hose down, every couple days. I can easily enough put the playpen in the chicken run - but the pool would be a hella challenge. I think. The (Pekin) ducklings are 5 1/2 weeks old, nearly as big as the chickens already, and due to be processed on the 27th. Our original plan was to keep 3, give one drake to our friends, and process 6. But, now we're down to only 7. So, we're only keeping 1, because that one is only half the size of the rest, and not worth processing, but he's very sweet, and I think will do fine, once he/it's not competing with a bunch of others, that trample him, getting to the food dish, lol. Our friends will have to wait till the next batch. The other 6 are being processed - if they survive that long. I think the processing windows are 7.5 weeks, 12 weeks, and... ugh. It doesn't matter. We're not keeping them past the 12wks. Not like this. This is horrible, to me. I'm doing the best I can, but right now, that's just not good enough. They deserve so much better. One bad hour - that's my philosophy. And this mess isn't fitting that, at all.

Thank you for your replies! You've been very helpful! Maybe a bit of extra staw in the playpen, will help with the mess, and can just be shoveled out, as needed. That might actually be easier than dragging out the pool. I'll look for a lower spot in the run, and that may also help with me containment.

Honestly I'd put them back into the garage until I felt well enough to get them otherwise safely situated. Or keep them in the chicken run assuming it's fully enclosed. In assuming the chickens roost in a shed or coop the run is attached to.

You might have to separate them from the chickens in the run if they're that young.

I'd toss in 2-3 plastic dishpans full of water once a day and that should keep the ducks cool as they get themselves wet, without it being as hard to cope with as a kiddie pool? I use rubber feed pans that are about 4" deep and about 16" diameter and ducklings adore their "bathtubs" as does, believe it or not, our adult goose! Less water, quick and light to dump and clean, I can even dump them into a bucket so I can choose where the water goes for "recycling".  Ducks mess water so quickly that smaller is often better than bigger from my experience, but it has to be big enough for them to have a "bath".

Also, even if you can't easily add ventilation, a big box fan on low to keep the air moving may help. We've done that in our brooder when the chicks were generating more heat than we could vent with our usual system. The fan should be above the birds by 6" at least - not blowing right on them.

I know how horrible it is when you realize you've let an animal that was counting on you die - but you can only do the best you can do. You were already struggling with a situation you weren't expecting and to be seriously ill on top of that moves things into the "impossible" range. Try not to beat yourself up too badly - this was not incompetence or irresponsibility it was shit happening. Yes, learn from it and try to have more flexibility available for the future, but you aren't the first to have an "oops". In my case, I suddenly had to leave for weeks to care for a sister who'd had emergency surgery and I was too late "reminding" hubby about a sitting duck by asking how she was doing in the heat- he'd let her get too hot in a heat wave by letting her pan run dry and he was pretty devastated. He'd been walking past her twice a day, but sitting ducks are so quiet and tend to only come off their nests when he's not around. Yep, shit happens!

I used the puppy playpen, as I mentioned in my other post, inside the chicken run. It's already proven perfect for keeping the chickens away from the ducklings. The pool is not in there to give them a pond, I keep it dry, and use it only to contain the mess created by the feeder pan & water font. I moved them to the run, today. I guess I didn't word my last post very well, lol. ;)

Ahh... yes, I was trying to parse what you were saying, but most people who use a "pool" for ducks, are filling it with water, it gets filthy within one hour, and is a pain to dump. Are you aware that ducks do need a bucket deep enough to dunk their heads to clean their nare (nose holes) at least once a day? If you need to keep things dry, that can be available for only a short period, but it is important, from everything I've read.

It sounds as if the dog pen is working - I use a *lot* of dog pens, usually 2 lengths joined together. They're worth grabbing if people ever see them second hand. Two sections I've added 18" hardware cloth panels to the lower part as "baby bumpers" so small birds can't get through the wire.

Jay Angler wrote:Ahh... yes, I was trying to parse what you were saying, but most people who use a "pool" for ducks, are filling it with water, it gets filthy within one hour, and is a pain to dump. Are you aware that ducks do need a bucket deep enough to dunk their heads to clean their nare (nose holes) at least once a day? If you need to keep things dry, that can be available for only a short period, but it is important, from everything I've read.

It sounds as if the dog pen is working - I use a *lot* of dog pens, usually 2 lengths joined together. They're worth grabbing if people ever see them second hand. Two sections I've added 18" hardware cloth panels to the lower part as "baby bumpers" so small birds can't get through the wire.

Yeh, being sick has made it difficult, in many ways, because it's not just the sick, but that the sick also brings strong detrimental affects to other health issues. It just takes a lot out of me, lol.
I love the dog pens and the metal dog crates, too! I keep a small dog crate inside the hen house (not in with the girls, but the interior of our walk-in hen house is divided in half, with chicken wire on wood frame, so there's a big storage area, inside, for feed, etc, where I'm putting shelves in, for additional storage & an 'exam' table) with nesting materials, for anything needing temporary isolation, like broody hens, or a 'sick bay'. I love having it there, because they're close to the other girls, so they don't get lonely, yet separate and confined, so they are safe, their movement is limited,  so their little bodies can do what they need to do.
We used a large dog crate as a brooder, for the ducklings, and it worked out great - they're easy to wash, with a hose, and in combination with the metal dog pens they're a Godsend, for small livestock. We even use them to transport/isolate our little goats.

That often, inside the chicken run, with the pool inside is working perfectly! Their water font (something I picked up from the Mennonites, designed specifically for ducks) leaked, so I mustn't have sealed it right, so I'm super glad I went ahead and put the pool in. It kept the teddy off the run dry. If I remember, later, I'll get a pic of the way it's set up. After I've had a chance to clean up the mess.

I'm feeling better, as far as the salmonella - that's minimal, now. I'm just dealing with the fallout effects it had on my other health issues. Thank you for all the help, everyone!!

Here we go. I hope these pics make it at least a little clearer than the mess they make.