Plan A: Adopt four ducklings, free-range them in the backyard, and give them an $8 kiddie pool to play in and a $60 doghouse to sleep in, because it’s cheaper than investing $300 in the prefabbed chicken coop that I want but Ron says we can’t afford.
Plan B (four weeks later): Get tired of draining the kiddie pool with a bucket every two days. Build pond and biofilter — with hose bibb attached to the top to make water changes fast and easy — out of a $60 stock tank and another $60 worth of gravel, plumbing parts, and other materials. Feel terribly clever.
Plan C (12 hours later): Discover that biofilters made from five-gallon buckets float, even when filled with water. Cuss. Add sand, gravel, and various other media to try to get submersible filter to stay submerged.
Plan D (12 hours later): Discover that five-gallon buckets full of waterlogged sand and gravel also float, because to hell with the laws of physics, that’s why. Cuss. Jury-rig $4 system for anchoring filter in place.
Plan E (12 hours later): Discover design flaw in anchoring system that keeps pump from functioning in new filter. Cuss. Spend another $30 on parts to build an external biofilter.
Plan F (5 days later): Discover that ducks generate way more particulate matter than a simple biofilter can handle, thus choking down the pump approximately 37 times a day. Cuss. Rummage through shed, find small plastic tub and some bungee cords, and construct mechanical filter to protect the pump.
Plan G (3 days later): Discover that pump is way too powerful to get away with using half-inch fittings for the entire project. Cuss. Blow another $70 on parts and materials to construct a finer mechanical filter, a clarifier, and a filter with outlets of increasing size. Damage filter while building it. Cuss. Repair it with duct tape and caulk, because hell with it. Watch in amusement as duct tape and white-trash engineering one-up all previous efforts and filter works better than all previous attempts, ostensibly because of better engineering, but probably because duct tape fixes everything.
Plan H (Somewhere in the middle of all that): Discover, on first warm day, that duck poop attracts a veritable plague of flies. Research problem. Determine that deep-bedding method will control flies while generating good compost starter. Make plans to invest $250 in enough fencing to confine the ducks to a comfortable corner of the yard with their pond, their house, and their favorite tree.
I’m so glad we didn’t waste $300 on a prefabbed chicken coop we could have assembled in one afternoon….
Emily
Red Fork Hippie 
You could have just bitten the bullet and bought some fertilizer for your garden and eggs for your table. I’m glad my son-in-law is long suffering and patient. More or less.
On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 11:32 PM, Red Fork Hippie wrote:
> redforkhippie posted: ” Plan A: Adopt four ducklings, free-range them in > the backyard, and give them an $8 kiddie pool to play in and a $60 doghouse > to sleep in, because it’s cheaper than investing $300 in the prefabbed > chicken coop that I want but Ron says we can’t afford. ” >
I mean, he could have just let me have the walk-in chicken coop, but I guarantee you won’t hear any complaints once the ducks start laying.
Anyway, this is entirely your fault for letting me read Mother Earth News when I was 3. I can’t help how I was raised.
😀
This is hilarious! I buried my stock tank for a pond and haven’t figured out the filtering yet either. Your ducks are cute though!
Thanks! The filtration system I’m using would be magnificent with fish, but nothing can keep up with a flock of birds throwing about a quart of feed in the water to disintegrate into murk every day.
I’ve been considering just sump pumping it out. The picture of mine is on my blog. Pretty similar!