0wen
Songster
I sent all of my quail to freezer camp around Thanksgiving and now have an empty coop. (Hoop house design - roughly 8.5W x 16L x 6H. I'd been using wood chips as flooring for the qual (and do the same in an identical chicken coop) because I BTE garden and use the same substrate in garden and coops. I've taken the quail coop down to earth and am planning to add half a dozen ducks here instead of quail (easy to process, great layers, not the most personality and the high protein poop stinks - a lot...). Just wondering what flooring to use to keep the ducks feet healthy, but also the coop and run manageable.
I'll likely add a swimming area in the uncovered portion of the hoop house. I have a few plastic stock tanks that aren't currently being used (I use them as brooders when I hatch) so will likely build a ramp/deck access for the ducks to use one of these so there will be some water get on the floor - also again, this is in an uncovered portion of the coop.
Considering pea gravel as just hosing the duck manure through it a few times per week. The coop is leveled, but one a small incline that would allow water runoff to make it to the lawn as it filters through the gravel. Acceptable flooring? Should I do a mix with sand (just worried this would get messy)? Other? Assuming the wood chips are too rough for duck feet? These aren't shavings like the kind that goes into animal housing, but just downed trees that go through the shredder - still occasional pokey things - thorns, splinters, twigs, etc - left into the mix? Great if that works, unfortunately if not as it would allow the waste to make it to the garden eventually...
I'll likely add a swimming area in the uncovered portion of the hoop house. I have a few plastic stock tanks that aren't currently being used (I use them as brooders when I hatch) so will likely build a ramp/deck access for the ducks to use one of these so there will be some water get on the floor - also again, this is in an uncovered portion of the coop.
Considering pea gravel as just hosing the duck manure through it a few times per week. The coop is leveled, but one a small incline that would allow water runoff to make it to the lawn as it filters through the gravel. Acceptable flooring? Should I do a mix with sand (just worried this would get messy)? Other? Assuming the wood chips are too rough for duck feet? These aren't shavings like the kind that goes into animal housing, but just downed trees that go through the shredder - still occasional pokey things - thorns, splinters, twigs, etc - left into the mix? Great if that works, unfortunately if not as it would allow the waste to make it to the garden eventually...