duck coop/house question........about the floor

[Graceful Acres]

What about 1/4" gaps??? Would anything get their hands through that? Would that be big enough
for poop to wash through to the ground?

 

[m.kitchengirl]

I have a hardware cloth floor in the yard part of the coop.
I use pea gravel on top & spray it out daily in the summer. In the winter I put a layer of straw over the pea gravel to give them some insulation under foot.

I have had no trouble with their feet, and it is easy to clean - even in the cold winter months.
To really get the gravel clean I rake it through several times & hose it out in between. My coop is raised up a bit to allow for drainage.

This spring I am cleaning out all of the pea gravel & putting in new. The old stuff will get cleaned & used for a raised area under & around their pool in the big duck yard.

I think river rocks would work well for you.

I used 1/4" hardware cloth, and replacing yours may be expensive. You could try adding some to the lower section in the yard, and maybe doubling up the 1/2" stuff by bisecting the 1/2" sections with one another, if that makes any sense.

Good luck to you. You'll get lots of good advice & points of view here.

The coop building process is so confusing for me, too. Very anxiety inducing. The whole first summer I had my ducks I would wake up in a panic thinking the ducks were getting eaten by something, and had nightmares of foxes & raccoons. You get over it.

 

[Graceful Acres]

Made it back home. so................we have decided to go with the Trex. We're going to put it 1/4" apart so it will be easy to clean. The floor is raised about 8-10" and I'm hoping this set up will serve me well. I plan to use a stiff, long handled brush for scrubbing poop off the floors when necessary. I'm sure most of it will rinse off but some may get stuck. I've noticed that in the bathtub lately. Some rinses, some I have to scrub off. Well...............I guess my next step is getting something for them to swim in. I can't believe how much money I've soaked into this "duck house." Oh.........we found some Trex at a local discount lumber yard. So...........it was literally half price.