Baking soda in bedding?

[DuckyVeit]

Good evening everyone! I have three ducklings, two of which are almost 5 weeks old, and one that is a week younger than them. At this moment in time, I still have them in totes inside my house until I'm done constructing their house for outside. As you can imagine, they are starting to really give a smell to my house that's not very pleasant. I was wondering if I could try sprinkling some baking soda in with their bedding to try and at least cut down the smell? Would that harm them if they happened to taste test? Or has anybody tried it before, and did it work? Any suggestions/advice would be marvelous before I lose my mind, because I can't stand a stinky house SOS!

 

[chickenlittle21]

I sprinkle diatomaceous earth on my ducks bedding and it definitely helps!

 

[KaleIAm]

I had mine on towels and replaced the towels five million times a day. My house still smelled like duck poop.

 

[Fuchsia]

My house still smelled like duck poop.
[/QUOTE

 

[KaleIAm]

Yeah.... Lol. Perhaps what not to do.

 

[Fuchsia]

Good evening everyone! I have three ducklings, two of which are almost 5 weeks old, and one that is a week younger than them. At this moment in time, I still have them in totes inside my house until I'm done constructing their house for outside. As you can imagine, they are starting to really give a smell to my house that's not very pleasant. I was wondering if I could try sprinkling some baking soda in with their bedding to try and at least cut down the smell? Would that harm them if they happened to taste test? Or has anybody tried it before, and did it work? Any suggestions/advice would be marvelous before I lose my mind, because I can't stand a stinky house SOS!

My ducks are not inside but they still stink! Like bad!

 

[Fuchsia]

I sprinkle diatomaceous earth on my ducks bedding and it definitely helps!

that helps?

 

[Fuchsia]

Yeah.... Lol. Perhaps what not to do.

I will make a note.
It will say: do not do what @KaleIAm did

Just kidding!

 

[KaleIAm]

I will make a note.
It will say: do not do what @KaleIAm did

Just kidding!

I've got a few of those notes around...

 

[nao57]

The baking soda trick would technically help with the smell. A candle also may help with that.

However, I personally would not risk a fire hazard, especially if you have kids running around, or if the animals can bump into it.

Technically at 5 weeks, your ducklings should be old enough to go into a backyard and be able to survive (as long as there aren't predators, or other concerns.) Some people even take them out earlier, at 4 weeks even.

There's also a trick you can do with wood chip bedding. You can do 3 different equal loads of wood chips with two in small shallow containers. Put the third in their bedding. Then the next day you dump those into a container and spray them off with the garden hose, and let them sit in the sun. That same day you'd put the second wood chip load in with the ducklings. And then just cycle them once a day. So you use each wood chip load a different day in a 3 day cycle total. This keeps it all nice and easy to clean. It works good if the washing bin you have them in can let them be sprayed and drain well. Rinse repeat.

This will help with the smell and also let you get more gas mileage on your wood chips. A lot of people change the wood chips only when they get really bad, but by then they don't like the smell and end up just throwing away the wood chips instead of trying to rinse and sun bake them.

Wood chips do help with the smell a bit. But if they get too soiled they won't block the smell as much. The fresh pine smell of wood chips also is nice when they are new. (Also the price difference of a bag of wood chips in your area will be best from an agricultural store, NOT from Walmart. I was surprised by this. In my area we have a store called IFA and they would sell wood chips pretty cheap.)

So back to the baking soda idea....

I'm not sure how much baking soda is OK and how much would be too much for them. This is a side question you may have to deal with. I'm not sure the answer for it, and technically too much might feel caustic to them, because they are mud diggers. This means its normal for them to push around their beaks in the dirt, ground, or a pen setup. So if there's too much baking soda they may have contact with it. But this doesn't mean its a bad idea, only that you may have to do a bit of figuring out. (And I did like the idea.)