A little more on the duck house project: electrical stuff, and floor joists.

I added a strip of LED lights to the central ceiling beam, plus a temporary heat lamp for the first few weeks of the ducklings:

The heat lamp is only needed when the ducklings are very young; they need about 95°F for the first few days, dropping about 5° per week until fully feathered. The lamp is red as that keeps them more calm.

I tested the heat lamp temperature with a couple of thermometers, to measure the temperature directly under the lamp, and a bit further away:

I mounted the power strip and the timer for the LED lights in the cupboard. There’s another mount point for the timer for the pond pump (which is currently outside). The power strip also has an Eero Beacon to help extend the Wi-Fi range to the duck house (for the camera). The wires aren’t arranged tidily yet; I’ll add some hooks to make them a bit tidier later:

Next, I built the floor joists; beams that will go under the floor, resting on concrete footing blocks:

The cutout in the foreground is to allow for the plywood panel that the maintenance door roller catches are mounted on.

I also included an angled mount point for the ramp from the duck door into the pond, which will be added later:

The ramp mount is angled at 20°, which seems a nice gentle slope, but I can tweak that when installing the ramp if necessary.

The ducks won’t be able to go into the pond until they’re old enough to swim without limits, so I could add the ramp after they’re living there, though will probably do it after installing the duck house.

Next up: vinyl floor tiles (I would have done that first, but they were only just delivered).