Thank you for the article. Great advice. In our experience, our ducks do put them selves to bed at night, that is, most of the time. We have our coop inside a fence. We allow them to free range during the day. We watch for them to go into the coop at dusk, then we close the door and shut the gate. We have a small pond nearby. Sometimes they decide to stay at the pond, but they know where their feed is and where they are most safe.