Bedding in duck house?

[Ducksandchickens]

I use river sand

 

[Ducksandchickens]

You must know that ducks are a lot of work. They are more work then chickens. No matter what bedding you use you will have to change it often. Duck poo is sticky, watery, and smelly. To keep you and your birds safe you have to change it often. At LEAST once a week. Hope I helped!!!

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

You must know that ducks are a lot of work. They are more work then chickens. No matter what bedding you use you will have to change it often. Duck poo is sticky, watery, and smelly. To keep you and your birds safe you have to change it often. At LEAST once a week. Hope I helped!!!

Sure!
Yeah, I am actually pretty new to both. Got adult chickens in October and got my ducklings about 5 weeks ago. They are 6 weeks old, so I can see how much work they are especially with the brooder. Hoping, it will lessen somewhat once they get to their permanent run and house. Plus, they can be more free to move around and explore than they are now.
Thanks for the input, I appreciate it.
Oh, and

 

[Ducksandchickens]

No problem. Good luck with your birds!

 

[onaharley]

I use leveling sand it's a little more coarser then play sand. I loved it . Easy to maintain, scoop poop in bucket and use it to fertilize my plants around my yard. It's a win win for me.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

I use leveling sand it's a little more coarser then play sand. I loved it . Easy to maintain, scoop poop in bucket and use it to fertilize my plants around my yard. It's a win win for me.

That is good to hear. Plus, if I remember, you top it off with straw in the winter?

 

[onaharley]

Yes this year I did pine shaving on top of sand then straw on top of shavings. Idk what clean up will be like when I remove all pine shavings and straw, but I will keep you posted on my outcome.

 

[DuckyDoodles]

I use leveling sand it's a little more coarser then play sand. I loved it . Easy to maintain, scoop poop in bucket and use it to fertilize my plants around my yard. It's a win win for me.

Hiya @onaharley ... curious if you allow water/food into the coop at night with your doodle brood? I’ve played around a teensy bit trying to find what works best for flick/me... I do full cleanout every Sunday where everything comes out and is hauled away and put down a fresh big bag of pine shavings (it covers a 6x8 floor of coop, so I don’t know size). I prep it before laying it down by starting with SweetPDZ and then pine shavings.

Few different questions (for all who care to post):

8 ducks, 6 of which are 7-8 weeks old, plus two adult Pekin equals, as we all know in duck world, POOP! So I’ve not found a way to really be able to poop scoop wih this brood as I had been doing with the two Pekin. So I sprinkle PDZ on it every morning after I let them out fluff and mix and swirl around and sprinkle a tiny touch more PDZ and basically I do that every day until Sunday where we start over.

I’m woefully unprepared for the ongoing, and accumulating, amount of used poopy bedding as I don’t have a compost set up yet.

So I was going to ask if any of you sand users/pooper scoopers could maybe record a quick video of your daily routine so I can gauge what a before/after looks like?

I’m unable to remove food and water overnight yet because of the ‘babies,’ but truthfully I would probably only remove food anyways as the heat could probably justify ongoing water use.

And for those of you who’ve used straw, I’ve seen videos where it seems to be SUPER easy to scoop out (compared to shavings) but I know they’re not absorbent and so I wonder if it has to be pulled out every day?

And I supposed the next big-simple-could-possibly-solve-this-whole-quandary question is how much bedding do the ducks actually NEED on a day to day basis? I intend to do DLM during winter and so I understand that’s not a normal bedding depth comparison but I just know it’s 80-90 degrees, waterproof coated solid wood bottom and they are freeranging during the day. Do they only need a few handfuls to help absorb the poop or is the bedding for comfort purposes only?

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

Hiya @onaharley ... curious if you allow water/food into the coop at night with your doodle brood? I’ve played around a teensy bit trying to find what works best for flick/me... I do full cleanout every Sunday where everything comes out and is hauled away and put down a fresh big bag of pine shavings (it covers a 6x8 floor of coop, so I don’t know size). I prep it before laying it down by starting with SweetPDZ and then pine shavings.

Few different questions (for all who care to post):

8 ducks, 6 of which are 7-8 weeks old, plus two adult Pekin equals, as we all know in duck world, POOP! So I’ve not found a way to really be able to poop scoop wih this brood as I had been doing with the two Pekin. So I sprinkle PDZ on it every morning after I let them out fluff and mix and swirl around and sprinkle a tiny touch more PDZ and basically I do that every day until Sunday where we start over.

I’m woefully unprepared for the ongoing, and accumulating, amount of used poopy bedding as I don’t have a compost set up yet.

So I was going to ask if any of you sand users/pooper scoopers could maybe record a quick video of your daily routine so I can gauge what a before/after looks like?

I’m unable to remove food and water overnight yet because of the ‘babies,’ but truthfully I would probably only remove food anyways as the heat could probably justify ongoing water use.

And for those of you who’ve used straw, I’ve seen videos where it seems to be SUPER easy to scoop out (compared to shavings) but I know they’re not absorbent and so I wonder if it has to be pulled out every day?

And I supposed the next big-simple-could-possibly-solve-this-whole-quandary question is how much bedding do the ducks actually NEED on a day to day basis? I intend to do DLM during winter and so I understand that’s not a normal bedding depth comparison but I just know it’s 80-90 degrees, waterproof coated solid wood bottom and they are freeranging during the day. Do they only need a few handfuls to help absorb the poop or is the bedding for comfort purposes only?

At 7-8 weeks they no longer need food and water 24/7 - so you can remove it now.
I am still using pine shavings with pdz. It is working for me, but yeah not really composting down. As long as there are no health issues, I throw the shavings into the run.
However, I just added sand and river rock to their water area, which will be hosed off once a week.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

Does dlm work for ducks since they don't scratch? I guess you would have to be the one stirring it up and "scratching" with a rake.