What does a goose coop need? (duck coop!)

I've had many questions about the details of my goose coop over the years. I've been asked why I built a separate goose coop, what does a goose coop need and was it difficult to build? I decided to answer these questions about my waterfowl coop. 

The coop was built specifically for my 2 Sebastopol geese. It eventually became the duck coop then the banty coop (with a few adjustments) We built the goose coop back in 2011 and it is still going strong. 

It's a very simple design, as I'll explain later, and the run also features a sunk-in pond. A duck or goose coop is fairly easy to build because they don't need a lot of the things chickens do, in fact they don't need much at all.



Ducks can be housed with chickens but I didn't always have luck with that, especially when trying the deep litter method. Ducks really destroy the deep litter system! I also had a problem with the ducks sleeping in the Silkies nest boxes. 

I had some really low nest boxes for my Silkies since they can't fly to get up to the regular nest boxes. One of my ducks liked to sleep in the nest boxes. One night she climbed into the nest box a broody Silkie was occupying. She crushed my sweet little Silkie. 

I also had a drake that was overly fond of the girl chickens. He needed to be separated for obvious reasons. As you see there can be different reasons why a separate coop might work out best for your ducks or geese and luckily it's really easy to build.

Building a waterfowl coop

For this coop we used hemlock from the Amish wood mill up the road. My husband wanted the board and batten style like he used for our first coop. We also used the same roofing since they were supposed to match. 

The waterfowl coop is simply a 4' x 4' square with a plywood roof topped with a galvanized steel roof panel. The roof is sloped slightly for rain run off. It does have a floor inside, also of hemlock and elevated a few inches off the ground. 

After building the floor and 4 walls he then cut a door into the coop and attached it back on ramp style with some hinges. A door for ducks or geese will need to be a bit larger than for chickens. They can be twice the size so obviously they need more room to waddle through. 

He added a door latch with a hole in it so I could lock it with a carabiner clip to make it impossible for raccoons to open the door. He also put a few slats on the ramp for traction and the coop was done. It's simply a box with a door and it works great!

Ventilation is important!

Ducks and geese are wet animals so there needs to be adequate ventilation at the top of their coop to let the moisture out. Too much moisture and their bedding can get moldy. Moisture can also cause frostbite in winter so ventilation is absolutely necessary. 

We didn't need room for their food and water inside the coop so that saves on space. We keep it outside the coop since they tend to absolutely wreck both the food and the water on a daily basis!

We added a  preformed plastic pond and only a 3 foot tall fence since these geese were too heavy to fly over it. Once we switched them out for the ducks I added deer netting over the top of the pen because Khaki Campbell Ducks Can Fly and they would let themselves out of the pen! 

This run was in no way predator proof, but we did have a LGD on patrol constantly. 

This coop held up very well for the ducks and geese. We eventually decided to not have waterfowl for awhile and converted their coop for a flock of 6 bantam chickens by adding a perch and a nest box. 

It was easy enough to do and can be undone quite easily if we decide to get ducks again. Or it can just be left that way since the additions are out of the way enough to not bother the ducks.

Building a coop for the waterfowl was much easier than building any of the chicken coops because geese and ducks need so much less than chickens. 

Thinking about raising ducks? Check out all my information on raising ducks in your backyard or homestead.

~L                                         

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