Duck diapers vs incontinence pads, puppy pads vs bedding underpads

[Kimmyh51]

Hi guys

I have a disabled duck who often wears a home made duck diaper, which I have been putting sanitary pads in each time he puts it on, to soak up his poop etc.

rigt now I also have a sick duck who has had avian botulism and is currently drinking a truckload of water and as A result a LOT of water is coming out her back end.

I have her inside overnight and puppy pads, a thick bed of straw, hay etc, none of it is enough to soak up all the fluid and in the morning she is always wet underneath

i was on a local medicine supplies site tonight ordering some more needles to give her fluids and I stumbled upon their medical incontinence products, things like underpads which are normally placed underneath people who are bed bound and having continence issues, and pads for incontinence

anyway I wondered to myself if these type of product might have more absorption than the puppy pads I buy at the local store and maybe be better than straw for my sick duck?

when I think of how much err. Volume comes out when a human goes to the toilet, to me that seems like a lot more moisture than a menstrual pad or puppy pad could hold. So I am wondering if something like these underpads might be useful to have for my sick duck who is drinking all the fluids nd the incontinence pads, whether they would be better or not for my disabled duck to use in his diaper?

while my sick duck is drinking so much water she is excreting a much larger volume of liquid than a normal duck, my disabled boy who wears diapers is otherwise healthy and his poop is normal consistency… so for him I am not sure whether an incontinence product would be better to put inside his diaper than a plain sanitary pad, or not?

usually he is only in his diaper (or as I like to call it since he has grown up, “Man duck undies!” For an hour or two most evenings (for cuddles on the couch) the sanitary pad is usually ok though sometimes there is sideways spillage, however if there were times whereit might be useful to have him in ”man duck undies” for a longer time then if incontinence pads would soak up a lot more of his business they might be worth getting.

my main concern right now though is to find something that might soak up a lot more liquid for my sick duck than straw or puppy pads are.. it looks like her recovery is going to take a while (not seeing medical advice as she is already under veterinary care and has had blood tests and is receiving all the supportive care possible while we wait on results), but if an incontinence underpad is likely to soak up a lot more fluid than the puppy pads or straw/hay/similar beddings, then it might be worth me ordering some of that for her.

if you have used any incontinence pads i would appreciate your thoughts, though listing stores to buy them at won’t help me as I live in Nz and we don’t the same stores here. If you know of any particular brands that are good I may be able to buy them here.

I am going to order a small number of a few different brands of underpad and incontinence pad in the meantime to try out and I will endeavour to return to this thread and post my own results, especially if I do find them significantly better than puppy pads and sanitary pads.

I also know some people use disposable nappies pr half disposable nappies in diapers. However the shape of the ones my drake is currently wearing is quite fitted to his shape and I would have to make another pair to use nappies as these ones are too err.. figure hugging to have enough space for a nappy (they are v shaped to “fit like a glove to his bottom and tail feathers, in a very sexy man-duck velveteen black fabric”, lol)

 

[NatJ]

my main concern right now though is to find something that might soak up a lot more liquid for my sick duck than straw or puppy pads are.

Have you tried using newspaper or old towels? You could put them underneath the straw, so the liquid runs through the straw and then soaks into them. Or those wood pellets they sell for horse bedding, that fall apart into sawdust when they get wet. Those can absorb LOTS of liquid.

Or maybe a raised floor of wire mesh, then bedding on top to make it more comfortable. That would let excess liquid drain away through the wire mesh.

I have no experience with the products you were asking about, so I'm just mentioning the things I do have experience with, that I would use if I had that situation.

 

[fatty and friends]

for the duck diaper, a store bought one may work better than a homemade one. also the open tail design is the only one i would ever recommend for ducks, closed tail makes it so they can’t preen or anything. our ducks use “avian fashions duck diapers” with half a disposable puppy pad inside. never had any issues with them leaking, and my ducks wear them everywhere we go

for inside their pens you can use reusable puppy pads! they absorb so much more and are surprisingly easy to clean, here’s a link to the brand we use for our ducks -
https://petparentsbrand.com/products/puppy-pads?variant=34523323203740

 

[TXChookstead]

I one time used a leftover chux pad (the human type) under new baby chicks. It was made differently than a puppy pad, and as they scratched at, it it began to pull apart into long, stringy filaments. One of the babies got its toes tangled up in these and ended up on its tummy, unable to move. So grateful we caught it quickly or it might have been a sad ending. Not sure if this is true of all human-use pads, but I haven't tried one since.

Those reusable ones that fatty and friends posted look amazing!