Our current design for portable pens has been very successful with ducks & chickens, so I am posting the materials list & designs here so you can try it yourself.
Because these portable pens are designed these for ducks, there are no laying boxes. I’ve added one to the pen that has our chickens in it, but I’ve only included a photo of it in the instructions. Contact me if you would like to get more detail than can be seen in the picture.
Samuel and his ducks
One of the main criteria for these pens was to keep them light enough so my 8-year old boy could move them on his own. I think the 5×10 ft size is a good compromise for capacity & weight. They have worked very well for us. Generally each pen holds a total of 8 adult ducks for eggs. During the summer, we kept about 15 meat birds in the same space and you could go with a higher density than that if you are willing to move them twice a day. The ducks generate a lot of mud during the winter rainy season here in western Washington, so we’ve kept the population down to ease the burden on the grass.
If you do give it a try, please let me know what you think of them, and how they might be improved.