When you have a backyard with abundant food sources and a cozy swimming pool, you may have an unexpected visitor around: duck. Ducks may live in the habitat which is close to your property, and they may visit your outdoor space to look for food or to simply play around your pool.
Just like you, duck loves to cool their body in the water. They see your swimming pool as a safe sanctuary without any predators around.
At some points, it may be lovely to watch duck hovering around the swimming pool (which can be a rare experience for some of you), but the problem occurs when they start polluting the pool with their droppings.
Of course, you don’t want to swim in the pool water with bird droppings in it. Besides it’s disgusting, they can also carry some dangerous viruses and bacteria like bird flu, E. coli, and salmonella. Especially when you have a pool with improper chlorine level, the risks that you may get infected by duck droppings become much higher.
Moreover, since pool water contains some chemicals, it can be dangerous for them as well. Ducks will drink from your pool water and it can kill them slowly if they drink too much.
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Therefore, you have to get them out before they cause a lot of problems that you have to deal with. The tutorial on How to Keep Ducks out of Pool below will help you to solve the problem.
How to Keep Ducks Out of Pool – DIY Tutorial
You can protect your swimming pool from duck visit all by yourself. There’s no need to ask for some help from wildlife organizations or duck experts (if there are some).
Put Floating Animal Toys
As mentioned above, one of the reasons why duck visits your pool is that they see no threats around. To make the pool less appealing to them, you can place some toys on your pool. It can be the first attempt to scare them off.
- Find some inflatable toys that float on the water.
- Choose the ones which mimic scary predators like snakes, crocodiles, or sharks.
Cover the Pool
If you have a pool cover or willing enough to invest in it, you can cover the pool when you rarely use it. Some ducks may still come around and poops on the cover, be careful when you clean the droppings so they won’t contaminate the water.
- Find the pool cover which fits well with your pool size and shape.
- Make sure that the duck won’t sneak under the cover.
Run The Automatic Pool Cleaner
If there are any moving things in your swimming pool, ducks will see them as threats.
- Use your automatic pool cleaner to add more threat to the ducks.
- Run it continuously when you notice the duck invasion.
Train Your Dogs
Since ducks are easily frightened, the bark of your dogs will totally cast them away.
- Let your dogs play around your swimming pool area.
- Train them to cast away the ducks by barking or chasing them.
Make Invisible Roof
Though this step might be quite tricky, it’s so fun if you do it with kids. The invisible roof here means protecting your pool from ducks with the bird netting or fish line that may not really visible to them. Once they try to visit your pool and happens to hit the roof, they won’t come back for another try.
Install the bird netting or fish line in crisscross position above your pool. Make it like the barrier so the ducks won’t be able to touch the surface of the roof.
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Add Inflatable Balls
The presence of some scary inflatable balls that look like big eyeballs can confuse the ducks. They will think the balls are some kind of dangerous predators that prevent them to land on your pool water.
- Purchase some of them in offline or online stores.
- Place on your swimming pool.
- It doesn’t only work to scare the ducks but also gives a more attractive touch to your swimming pool appearance.
Use Some Chemicals
Keep in mind that you do this step for the very last option. Though the chemicals that work to deter the ducks are kinda safe, adding other chemicals can give particular effects to the chemical balance of your pool.
You can directly add the chemicals to the pool water. Use this step if you have tried all of the steps above and still have the frustrating duck invasion around.
So those are some DIY steps that you can do to solve the duck invasion problem. Of course, you can do all of them by yourself without spending a lot of money.
An addition to the How to Keep Ducks out of Pool Tutorial above, we share some tips that you can keep in mind:
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Avoid Planting Fruit-Bearing Plants
Besides your pool, the plantations’ choice that decorates your backyard can also become food sources for the ducks. So, if you have some fruit-bearing fruits around your backyard with a cozy swimming pool in it, then you provide complete treats for them.
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Plant Something Tall
Planting some tall shrubs and low-hanging trees can shade your pool which also makes the duck find it hard to spot some predators. With this kind of nuance, ducks will see your swimming pool look less appealing.
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Maintain Your Swimming Pool
If your pool more looks like a pond – with green water and leaves all around – ducks love them. Therefore, make sure that the chlorine level of your pool is always in the ideal range to keep as hygiene as possible. The smell of chlorine is also less appealing to ducks. Then always skim any visible debris that you spot in your swimming pool.
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Duck invasion is a tricky problem that you have to solve as soon as possible. The disease that they may carry can lead to more serious problems that you don’t want to experience. So, just add this tutorial on How to Keep Ducks out of Pool to your DIY Project now!
