Folding Duck House

With the avian flu poultry lockdown my ducks proved tricky to keep happy in confined spaces. Used to having the whole smallholding I decided the kindest thing would be to house them in the polytunnel. This gives them plenty of space and with the old sheep footbath as their pond. 

But keeping them in there doesn't protect them at night. And a recent fox attack of a friends ducks hammers this home as he lost all but one of his ducks (which now lives with ours for the time being). 

So time to build them a coop. 

There are certain conventions we follow when it comes to poultry housing. People either buy or make what everyone else, has because it works. But my mobile chicken coops have worked so well over the last 3 years it makes me look at things a little differently. 

I want my coops to be easy to move, easy to repair and easy to clean. Having wooden shiplap boards looks amazing and does keep them weather proof but using my coops for the last 3 years has shown me that a tarp is plenty of protection and provides no where for mites to hide. 

The basic frame is a folding billboard type made from 4x2 that are halving jointed together for strength then hinged at the top. 

The base sits on the frame and is cabled tied to it. I also added some wire to the frame to prevent predators from entering it (this is recycled from a broken heras panel). 

Then the front and back are added. These are easily fixed in with a few screws. The front has a ramp and vent and the back is easily opened to allow cleaning. 

The whole coop is then covered with a tarp. This one is only a cheap tarp - a thicker one would last a lot longer, but it's what I had to hand. 

So a fairly cheap coop that can be knocked apart and taken down in very little time. So far the ducks have taken a bit of rounding up at night (one duck is just mental) but it keeps them safe from predators. Obviously at the moment it's in the polytunnel so it's not a proper test of it but I'll use it for a while and report back on how it does.

I know this won't be to everyone's taste but interested to hear what people think!