Amiga, (and anyone else with Runners),
Do you find yourself collecting eggs in the winter months? I have read that runners can lay around 300 eggs a year, which sounds like everything but 2 months of winter?
Also, I second Fowl Farm's question, do your ducks "do their business" in their house? Is there a way to get them not to? Does putting the food and water outside of the house help at all?
Yes, I collect eggs all but about two months in winter.
The ducks poop in the duck house, but get this: because I use over a foot of shavings, and the ducks only spend the night in the house, and I stir the shavings once a day (easy three minute job), the poops dry up within hours and crumble apart and just mix into the shavings. Sometimes if I want some plant fertilizer I pick some up and put them in a little bucket, add water and give it to the plants. But aside from that, the stuff stays in the shavings. If and when I use a few inches of straw, it stays in the straw that I clean out every 2 or 3 days.
Putting the food and water outside the sleeping area makes a day-and-night difference. I still have them in their winter night pen right now (walkout basement area), where I have Manning flooring under a few inches of straw. Each day I sprinkle about half to an inch or two of straw on top. After a week to ten days I clean it all out and start over. No unpleasant aroma, mostly smells of straw with a little earthiness especially toward the end of the week. The water is in the bottom half of a large plastic dog crate, with sawdust pellets in the bottom. Those get stirred daily, added two a few times a week, and replaced week to 10 days or so. That works very well, also.
Nine beautiful Runners, four beautiful Buffs, thousands of beautiful memories and counting.
Looking for ducks? Please consider adopting rescued ducks. There are many places and people who do rescues, but we are not allowed to post the links due to BYC regs. So fire up your web browsers and find some sweet, grateful duckies.
Nine beautiful Runners, four beautiful Buffs, thousands of beautiful memories and counting.
Looking for ducks? Please consider adopting rescued ducks. There are many places and people who do rescues, but we are not allowed to post the links due to BYC regs. So fire up your web browsers and find some sweet, grateful duckies.
