A new duck house has been on my “Honey Do” list for more than a year now. Peep, Squeak, and Oscar have been living in a makeshift house that was recycled from another project.

The old house was never designed for ducks and was too big for our trio of Pekins (we had eight at one point!). It was difficult to clean – so it didn’t get cleaned out often enough. It had a wood floor that a predator chewed through. The wood was beginning to rot. And, frankly, it wasn’t very pretty to look at with its tarp roof and all.

This duck house is tucked under fir trees right next to the duck pond.

Paul designed it with a sloping roof that would divert snow away from the doors – and from building up against the sides. The house side faces north giving the ducks protection from the winter wind.

It has a concrete floor and four doors, two on each side, that open up to allow us to shovel out and rinse it out. It needs some paint, but that will have to wait until the spring.

You’d think the ducks would be thrilled to move into their nice, new home. That was far from the case. They led us on a merry chase (see the evidence in Paul’s video below). They avoided us by escaping into the pond, refusing to come out, hiding on the far side of the pond forcing us to wade through the brush and weeds to smoke them out. No sooner as I got one duck into the coop and tried to collect the second, the first would pop out and we’d start over. I did prevail. Eventually.

With the new house up, Paul and his tractor made quick work of the removal of the old house – at least from my line of sight from the house.

If you like this coop and have use for one, Paul has shared his design on his site, Downeast Thunder Creations. You can find the duck coop plans here.

Paul created a number of videos showing the building of the coop. At about 4:30 minutes into the video below, he captured us introducing the ducks to their new house. On film, the task looks like a scene from the Keystone Cops!