| CONSTRUCTION |
| Whew, Those past pages were really a mouthful! Now onto the more practical side! |
| My ducklings would require a temporairy home for the eight weeks they were here. Most of the time they would be in my garage, but I also built an outside pen for them where they went on sunny afternoons. I created the "brooder" out of plywood and um, wood (?) given to me from the industrial section of my school.. (Thanks!) so luckily I didn't have to spend too much. It was a basic structure, two large squares joined in the middle. The side were plywood and the corners just wooden planks. The wall that separated the two squares was cut in the middle to make room for the big heater (also borrowed from school). This way they could all fit without me having to scrounge about for an extra heater. This is what it looked like... |
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| I lined the floor of my "brooder" with thick newspaper (not just single sheets) This would help obsorb any major spills and also reduce the cold felt from the cement floor. Next I put in their bedding.. Sawdust, once again from the dust extractor in school, I was careful not to scoop up sawdust from the floor in classrooms as it may contain metal screws etc.. the dust extractor I knew wouldn't have parts like that in it's sawdust. The Heater followed, placed across the middle. It looked like a table from the outside. in the inside was a bulb and the element, the ducklings had to duck undernieth the edge to get in and out. At a later date I had to prop it on bricks in order for my ducklings to fit! The sawdust added depth to the flooring and I found that the divinding wall that was to go under the heater was too short. I folded some wire over to act as an extension. Although, initially the ducklings even managed to scramble over this.. I had to reinforce it right up to the roof of the heater! This is what the end result looked like... |
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| Looks cosy doesn't it? It worked well, just the right size for the ducklings... until- they grew. About 5 weeks later the little guys were poking their heads over the top! Images of opening up the garage to 10 ducklings all running free, eating scraps of metal or stuck somwhere soon drove me to create an extension. Grabbing yet more free plywood, some nails and putting the ducks in their outside pen for a day I built an extension. this involved pulling the whole lot apart and using longer bits of wood for the corners.. I went around the join (on the outside only) with ductape (har har) so no-one could get their bill's stuck in the gaps. This is what it ended up like... |
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| The Brooder |