Duck You !

[Jodansgang]

Right then, still don't know how to stick photos on here because I'm tik.
The ducklings have virtually lost all their down and have nearly turned from baby yellow to adult white. They have grown from hand sized to 2 1/2 hand size and from what I understand they will end up the size of a small dog.
The improvised dog kennel has made a great duck house but something is wrong with it because the wet snow that hit us yesterday morning soaked the inside and wet all their bedding (however it was windy 35mph gusts and it was cold 1.1c) A fix is needed and I also need to raise it off the ground a bit.
We live in a through terrace on a row of 4 and our front garden is about 4m long and 6m wide.
Down the centre is a path that leads to the front garden gate.
I have raised the entire perimeter fence to 2.2m high and left slats (verticle openings) in it to allow wind through it.
We live on a hill on the side of an urban valley.
The 2 ducks live on one side and the 4 chickens live on the other, separated by the path.
We don't allow them to mix together because I understand that ducks are susceptible to salmonella which is transferred through their egg shells when in contact with chickens.
They both (chickens and ducks) eat poultry feed, which supposedly doesn't attract rodents and costs £7 for a big tatey sised sack!
The bedding is lemon scented horse bedding which is chopped straw and wood shavings, also at £7 a sack full. The food and bedding supposedly lasts about 3 months.
1 chicken is egg bound (not laying)(the wife says) 3 are giving us 1 egg each a day, every day now for 3 weeks ish. I'm sick of flicking eggs already! NOT.
The ducks won't start laying until between 5 and 7 months!
They are let out of their coops (chickings and ducks) every morning at 6.30 and all 6 of them put themselves to bed at dusk. The local blackbird sings them in!
I did build the pond out of the kidney bean shaped baby bath but it's more of a puddle! The ducks like it though.
Oh, I keep them separated with a makeshift fence either side of the path. Plan to build something better this Easter weekend as we are not going wild camping after all .
I am now really thinking about using solar powered garden lights to charge a 12v 85ah battery to run a pump to pump the water, via a timer, out of one of the two water butts we have in the garden. I'm also thinking about running a similar system in the back garden to water the veggies.