posted 9 years ago
Penny,
I am in the Pacific Northwest and we will have periodic cold weather. I have had ducks over the years here on the farm, (loved those Call ducks). In my experienced opinion you are on the right track. We kept the ducks in predator proof pens that had one end of the pen enclosed with plywood or a tarp. Face that enclosed end towards prevailing winds. Straw or shavings on the ground in the enclosed portion of pen. They will mess the bedding up a bit, a fresh layer over the top when needed. When the wading pool froze over we just left it like that and carried pails of water out to them. Get two pails, it was much easier to just switch pails out in the morning, removing the frozen remnant pail and dropping off the new water pail. We also found out that feeding cracked corn or scratch during the cold weather seems to help. The understanding that we have is that the corn actually produces heat in the poultry as it ferments in their crops and gizzards. Whether it is true or not I know that all my poultry will eat far more scratch during the cold weather then hot weather. Now this next part is only if you are like totally going to "mother" your ducks. In the past, especially with young ducks in cold weather, we would run an extension cord out to the pen and put a clamp light with a heat lamp in it and turn it on at night. You can get a clamp light at any of the big box hardware stores along with a heat lamp. Clamp the light up high up in the enclosed end of the pen you don't really want to over do it with the heat lamp. A heat lamp really warms and with grown ducks you are only trying to "take the bite" out of the bitter cold.