How to keep ducks and their pen mud free during winter.

[20123001]

Right now their pen is covered in mud and making my birds filthy even though they have clean water. I don't like when my call ducks get super muddy, i had a hutch thing for them but it was destroyed. What can i do to prevent this? They have a house they can go in but it doesn't seem to keep them any cleaner. I usually let all my birds out but lately they have been dying from predator attacks. Any suggestions?

 

[TennesseeTruly]

Quote:
Right now I throw the used pine shaving out and around and it's kinda like the straw after a while it gets bogged down and spongy so I am thinking the pea gravel will help to keep the nasties under it and i can just rinse off at night as long as the hose stay thawed. Now should I put sand under the gravel or is that over kill? appreciate your imput with 10 ducks and 1 goose it is very gross right now and we had alot of rain yesterday and now snow so it's getting worse by the minute.

We roll up our hoses and bring them inside when its going to freeze outside. Then we bring them back outside in the morning. We use our hoses all winter long by doing this. This way they don't freeze up on us.

We use straw or hay down in our duck and goose yards too. I'm always afraid with the pea gravel of them eating or choking on it.

Laurie

 

[grawg]

Just a tip I read somewhere on here about using pea gravel ML. Put some sort of underlay below it. I think the poster said they used weed barrier landscape cloth. If you don't do this the gravel will sink through into the mud pretty fast and you will be left with mud over pea gravel.

I can speak from personal experience on this as part of our front yard used to be gravel until the mud "flowed" over it. So now if I dig there I hit a layer of gravel 2-3" below the dirt.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Quote:
X2 it's defiantly seemed to help with the mud

and after awhile you can make bricks

sorry i couldn't resist.

 

[arkwelded]

I gave up. The house stays clean as they don't use it in the day. We lock them in at night for predator protection, and then they cuss me out every morning when i let them out. Lol
I just hose my Pekins off when I can't see white feathers any more. They are worse then my friends hogs. The other day they made a puddle when the snow melted. They dug the hole under the roofs rain spout...
My ducks love mud, but I still love them.

 

[StevenW.]

I put down a thick layer of straw.

 

[Kevin565]

Quote:
X2 it's defiantly seemed to help with the mud

 

[Amiga]

Quote:
X3

In winter I keep adding a little straw on top so they'll have something clean and dry to stand on. As it starts to build up, I'll pull back the top layer, rake out some of the more composted material and place around the edges or on the compost, then put the top layer back and top it off with more fresh straw. Really sounds more complicated than it is.

Of course, last winter, it did not take long before we had a few feet of snow on the ground - no mud!

 

[Kevin565]

 

[Miss Lydia]

I am seriously thinking of getting some pea gravel to put down where they all hang out the most. It is a mud pit and gross, so any comments on using pea gravel does it work or am i waisting my money?