Dirty nesting boxes after one night

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bayyjayy

bayyjayy

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I am not sure what I expected, but man! My nesting boxes that I put in my pen last night are REALLY REALLY disgusting this morning.....I hardly had any poop at all on the floor of my pen, and one look at my nesting boxes and you can see why! I thought I would do the deep litter method in the nesting boxes, but if this keeps up, not sure what to do with all the straw I am going to go through changing the boxes every single day. I knew they would poop in them some, but....wow!!!! Continue to be surprised by these little darlings.
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okay for 1 you don't want them to sleep in them, only lay their eggs in them right? so in the evening put something in the nest boxes like plastic buckets or anything that will keep them out of the nest boxes till morning, then go out and remove the stuff early so they will use them to lay their eggs. I know of no other way. Thats why i don't use nesting boxes for my ducks.
 
At first I was going to respond thinking you had chickens, but you are talking about ducks. Yes they are super poopers. I use deep litter with the chickens, but it is a different story with ducks.
 
Miss Lydia....you said you don't use nesting boxes for your ducks. What do you do then? Their pen is pea gravel and sand. They slept in there a couple nights before I decided to put the boxes in there. Do you put straw or hay right on the floor? I just don't know what to do to make them comfortable and to make them a place to lay eggs.
 
scratch'n'peck :

At first I was going to respond thinking you had chickens, but you are talking about ducks. Yes they are super poopers. I use deep litter with the chickens, but it is a different story with ducks.

SUPER poopers is more like it....ALL CAPS FOR SURE!​
 
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My duck house is set up like a horse stall except on a much smaller scale, because I have a gander and 2 drakes they cannot all sleep together in one place so they each have their own rooms, well my gander and his duck mama sleep together and then of course my 2 drakes each have their own bedroom, then 3 of my duck hens bunk together and my 3 new girls have their room then my girl that is having problems has her little lean to. so she won't get harasses by the other girls. they are enclosed with tops that are hinged and made out of hardware cloth and framed on 4 sides so they have to stay in their rooms till I come and let them out in the morning. they all have about 6" of pine shaving in their rooms and the girls that are laying just lay in their rooms before they come out in the morning or go back into their house and lay in whoevers door happens to be still open. I usually leave a couple doors open and the chickens will go in there to lay too. I've even seen duck and chicken laying side by side. lol sometimes one of the ducks will go int the chicken coop and lay an egg but not usually. when my duck went broody this summer I moved her 2 sisters out to a xlarge dog crate in my feed shed, so she could have her privacy, they do get moody. but I can take pics of the set up if you like. it's nothing fancy but I had to come up with something where they would be no fighting between the boys.
 
YES! Pictures, please. I love to see set ups and I am really curious to yours.

Thank you!!!!
 
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okay will go right now.
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goose and mommies room,
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Opies bedroom.
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rooms with doors open, like I said crude but serves it's purpose.
this is in the chicken coop. we made individual nest sites on the floor which would work too, I go in everyday and stir bedding so they have fresh bedding and in the summer when my hens [chickens] are laying and brooding I put cat boxes with the tops on them into these nest sites so they have plenty of privacy. hope you understand it all.
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Because you edited your post, it didn't look like you had posted pictures. I have gotten on MANY times yesterday, so this morning I decided to come in here and post this icon for you:
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because that is SERIOUSLY what I have been looking like, down to the coffee!!!! LOL

Thank you so much for sharing. I LOVE it. Do the ducks know which bed is which....do they go where they are suppose to, or do you have to play catch and release? I love your set up.

Couple questions.....what do you have under your bedding? You say you go in and stir it up....do you scoop out the gross stuff and then just stir? I need to figure out something. I like how it looks. I like the pic that shows all the doors open.

Now I am stressing that we didn't do it right. I have pea gravel and sand, but now the thing that has me obsessed is bedding! Not sure what to do now. I have some bedding left, plus it is really cheap, anyway....wondering if I should use this instead of straw......the straw was really gross yesterday......ugh........what to do, what to do!

I appreciate you taking the time to take pics and load them....thanks so much. I really enjoy looking at others peoples set ups! I really like your set up, too. Pretty neat!!!
 
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we put cheap vinyl on the floor then I put down a layer and layer of pine shavings, I do take the flat end shovel and scoop out the stuff on top I have a big plastic container that I keep outside the door and I dump all in there then at the end of the week or when full I take it up and put it around my blueberry and strawberry plants or whereever else I need it. We have had this setup since May 2010 and it only took a few days for them to figure out where to go, before that we had small wooden houses set up and that was a pain. alot of people use sand and pea gravel nothing wrong with that. I have uased deep litter ever since I started with ducks over 7 years now. and it works for me, I was cleaning out all litter 2X a year but since I read this link http://www.plamondon.com/faq_deep_litter.html
I will probably only clean out completely 1X now, I'll just have to see how it goes over winter. I also use lime which is suppose to help with keep things dry and order free. we'll see. when I first got my ducks I used straw but the poop just sat on top, which was so nasty, since I have been using shaving [pine] it just needs to be stirred real good and it's good to go and I add as needed. I am pretty fanatical about things being clean and smell free in my coops. I also use Oxine ah to keep things sanitary. I love your duck house and you'll get the kinks worked out, thats what is so nice about having scrap wood laying around you can try different things and if they don't work just take down and try something else. Most of the duck house is built on scrap lumber my son brought home from construction jobs he was on. What a blessing it saved us alot of money. thank you for likeing my setup, I had never seen anything like it, but I figured for us it was the best since my boys will fight in close quarters. I jsut make sure the goose and his mama are put up first then everyone else is safe to go in lol
 

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