Frozen duck bedding

Hey Everyone,
I live in New Brunswick Canada and I have 3 Khaki Campbell ducks, I am having trouble keeping their bedding from freezing now that its winter time. What does everyone do to keep their ducks dry and the bedding from freezing ? I have a heat lamp in there for the cold nights and i change the beeding every other day but when they dabble the bedding gets soaked and freezes at night and I cant imagine them being very comfortable that way especially when they are wet. Thank in advace for the advice.

I would move the water source out of the sleeping area and get/use a waterer that doesn't allow them to splash/dabble. Usually lidded buckets/barrels with a hole just enough for their head to fit through helps a lot.

My setup is different than yours. I have two structures filled with a deep layer straw for shelter/ nesting and I have a deep layer of straw in my enclosed duck pen. The water source is outside in the pen. I don't have a heat lamp.

I find i can still TURN their straw over as needed as long as it is at least 20 when i try to do it. The top portion is frozen but underneath is warm.

This morning is was zero degrees before the windchill when i went out to get eggs/feed/water/treat/BS with my ducks and I couldn't turn it over. I'll try tonight when i get home.

My girls don't seem to mind that the ground is cold/wet/snowy. They just sit their little fluffy rear ends down and start gossiping with each other.

They bathed this morning once it got above zero.

I'm still new to ducks but I watch their behavior and let them tell me when they aren't happy with a situation. This is where knowing your birds and their flock behavior will help you understand what they are trying to tell you.

They are still laying very well everyday, and they havet cahned their habbits at all ive know them extremely well. I was just wondering if there was a different way i coulld do things so that it wasnt getting as frozen as it has been the past couple weeks. I will have to try some straw bedding and see if that helps me out some I usuallly bed with shavings and a layer of hay that is left on the bottle of my goat feeder that is clean but the goats waist. This seems to freeze really fast and I dont want them getting uncomfortable as the winter and it gets colder out.

thanks for the advice, I have had ducks for almost a year now ( first winter) with ducks but ive had chickens and been breeding them for almost 10 years now. I will have to get a bale of straw and change my set up around abit this weekend and see how that works out for me, thanks alot again for the advice.

Hi There!
I have been super busy at work and with holidays I have not been on the forum much. Our temps here in south central WI are going to be dropping to "normal" in the next week... I mean below 15. ; ) We got our first snow since beginning of Nov last week, just 6". WARM winter to be new to having ducks.

I have followed the recommendation of many on this forum and have purchased bales of straw to lay on the ground and in their coop. I did not like it in the coop (night bedding) as it was a pain to clean out the poop in the a.m., so I have stuck with pine shavings- just clean out wet poop in the morning, and before I put them up for the night (about 7pm), I add a fresh layer about 3-4" thick. I try to stir the bedding each morning after the scooping so it can get some fresh air through it.

The straw around the rest of their space is a thick layer on top of a bed of landscaping river rock. Their pen is under our screen porch right up to the house. It has been very good. I rake up wet messy stuff around water and food areas when I can move it to the garden (as mulch). When I can't, I gently rake up the dry straw, spread it over wet straw and if necessary, lay some more down. I think I have 165 sq ft, and I have opened bale # 3 (it seems to go a long ways). I have 4 ducks- all hens, 2 chocolate runners, 2 welsh harlequins, and lately getting 3 eggs each day- one runner began a molt (she's small).

All seem happy and look healthy.

Straw bales also work great as wind breaks and insulation I have some along the "windy" side of my pen and along the wide edge of my stock pond. Luckily, the hens are in a natural depression and they're sheltered from the wind as long as we aren't getting blizzard or crazy hurricane/storm conditions.