Question about duck's water.....

[waterfowlrescue]

I keep fish for my wading birds and they can live inside the pen with a heron for weeks and the herons poop in the water. I pour the water through a strainer and put the fish, dead or alive back into the feeding tub. Its amazing some can live for weeks being changed every day.

LAst year one lived so long we bought him a tank and kept him. He lived for a long time until I bought some fish from walmart that were all diseased and put them in with him and they all died. Blasted walmart.

 

[GoodEgg]

I will try the vinegar then, if that can help.

I bought the largest hard-sided pool I could find. (I wish I'd known that blow-ups would work ... I thought the duck's toenails would puncture them!) I can't possibly dump it out (even if I was strong enough, it would collapse the sides and crack them before long) without removing most of the water.

Y'all are lucky ... mine become too nasty after about 36 hours. Don't know if it's where I live, or what makes the difference, but ... 4 ducks in there, and it has to be cleaned almost every day.

I'll try the vinegar though, and move to a location that has shade for ALL of the day instead of half. Maybe that will help too.

Next time I'm definitely going to get the blow-up ones, if those will do. I can mash the sides of them and let the water out!

trish

 

[SandraChick]

I use a short hose to empty mine..like a syphon. Really easy. Once the water is low enough, then I dump it (i have no patience!)

Sandra

 

[waterfowlrescue]

Here is the picture of some of my pools.

This was right after we got in 200 muscovy ducks so the pen was very crowded.

http://flickr.com/photos/85081070@N00/866515381/

THis is my favorite pool

http://flickr.com/photos/85081070@N00/605724093/

The blow up pools last one day here

If I just had a pekin or two they woudl probabyl do fine but with geese or muscovy they pop instantly.

I have one inch drain pipes on all these pools they drain quickly. The water is on a timer to refill them all as well. So its not much effort to clean them. During busy rehab season we clean the pools daily. Right now every few days or so works because they hold a lot of water.

 

[chickenlisa]

I'll try vinegar too. The pool we have came from the family we got our first duck from and it has a drain on it with a hose (about 3/4" maybe???) but it just doesn't drain well at all. It is very slow and the hose doesn't seem to draw well-the water just piddles out so bailing is faster (but so messier) for me.I can't seem to get the pool high enough to get the hose lower enough to drain faster. Is there someone who can tell me how to get this hose to work better or how to replace it with a bigger one? It's connected underneath the pool to the drain assembly... the handle of the drain is inside the pool and it turns 45 degrees to open or close the drain. Maybe I'll try to put photos here tomorrow...I was thinking I needed a pump to help empty it but my DH didn't want to spend the $ on it. But I do need to get this worked out soon. More ducks will be joining us in a month. (I'll start a diff thread on that subject.)
Thanks, Lisa
(Can anyone tell just how mechanically challenged I am? I can make the meanest salsa, and have done the biggest baddest math or chemistry problem, just don't try to get me to figure out how to get a baby pool to drain fast.)

 

[waterfowlrescue]

I bored out the hole of the drain to make it bigger and put the spicket at the end of the hose so that it creates a natural syphon since the hose is already full of water. Gravity does all the work since there is somewhat of a grade. I could take some photos of it next time I am draining the pool.

 

[chickenlisa]

Hi all- I cleaned it out yesterday with vinegar and left some white vinegar in the new water. I also moved the tarp to over the pool and secured it over the top of their pen. So far so good. They got it dirty already, but they don't mind the dirt. They do not like it green though (nor do I.)
waterfowlrescue, how do you secure the hose to the drainhole without the water leaking out around the hose? I could do that, but need a bigger drain hose,(this one is only about 3/8"-1/2" inside diameter) and need to figure out how to get it to stay in the hole without the water leaking out around it. I did take pix of ours, but need to get them into the computer and remember how to get them to show up here. I'll try that tomorrow.
Lisa