do i need bedding?

[Deleon98]

I have a literal dirt floor for the ducks but i was wondering if i need to put shavings or something down.

 

[0wen]

You could likely dry rake the dirt floor in the coop/run to keep it clean if you're opposed to some sort of ground covering. I don't keep ducks, but imagine they'd need some sort of organic material somewhere to at least bed down in though..

 

[TLWR]

No. You don't need it.
Mine are on a wood floor and having bedding in a next box. And even then they take it out of the box and get rid of it lol

 

[jrleek]

I don't quite have my ducks yet, so I can't speak to their specific needs, but I have had chickens for quite a while.

The main problem with having chickens on plain dirt was just that the poop got kinda stinky. The main purpose of bedding, as far as I can tell, to cut the smell and make things easy to clean up. (Bedding is often referred to as "carbon" against the poop's "nitrogen," AKA ammonia. This terminology comes from composting, where you need to have both to have an effective compost pile. You can tell you don't have enough carbon if the compost stinks.)

However, as a total cheapskate I hated to pay for bedding. After some experimentation (newspaper, tree mulch, etc.) I found out that I can get coffee grounds for free from Starbucks. My local starbucks fills a 5 gallon bucket full of coffee grounds every day. So I leave 2 buckets and pick them up every other day. The coffee grounds do a great job of keeping the smell down, then I can just shovel them into the compost bin. I get a fresh smelling coop, and top notch compost very quickly. I assume this will work at least as well for ducks and their watery poops.

 

[wamtazlady]

The problem with ducks and dirt is together they equal mud. I've only had ducks for 2 weeks now. It's unbelievable how much water they play with each day. If I didn't have bedding down to absorb that water there would be a huge mess in there. As it is the bedding where they sleep needs topped off every couple days to keep a nice dry area for them.

 

[Duck Drover]

We have good success watering the poop into the ground for the worms. The worst stink is having wet shavings because they take so long to break down. Chicken poop needs to be composted and aged because it is so hot and does not break down as easily as duck poop. The duck poop can be diluted with water and used as instant fertilizer.

 

[Wobbles]

For me bare ground is super hard to clean. I try to rake the poop up but it is nearly impossible! I would suggest to get sand at least, that is my goal this year. Otherwise I sit out there with the hose and spray the dirt down...it works ok but I feel it is never truly clean lol. I've done woodchips outside too but we are surrounded by lakes and it is super windy here ofen so they end up all over the yard and that drives me crazy!

 

[Duck Drover]

We have such healthy soil without pesticides that our worm population takes care of our poop as long as it is liquified enough for them to eat it. If there is too much poop and not enough dirt and worms you may not have healthy soil. You can always add worms to do the work. Once the liquified poop has soaked into the ground, and duck poop is already pretty much liquid already, there is no mess and the clean topsoil dries quickly. If the soil gets too saturated with poop it takes more water to wash it into the soil. We get alot of rain so the process happens naturally all winter, I just help it along during dry weather.

It could take time to get your soil loaded with worms but the moist dirt should attract them. If the dirt is too dry they may not be as active because they need to stay moist so they will seek out moisture. We have so many worms now that I can see their dirt plugs where they have been actively feeding. We also have 3 Worm Factory bins to feed worms our coffee grounds and food scraps (that don't go to the chickens) since my husband drinks a pot of coffee a day to medicate his ADHD.

 

[Amiga]

I use chopped straw over soil in the day pen, and the pen itself has a 2% slope so rain drains off nicely. The manure combines with the straw and I get a lovely, earthy compost.

 

[Deleon98]

I'm not rlly opposed to it just wondering if it was necessary ig I'll put something down