Duck hutch/coop...shavings/straw...?????

[McChics]

So...not new to the whole coop thing - at least with chickens.

My duck babies are just now staying in the hutch at night.

My design is simple. It is built off the main coop. It is 5.5 feet long and 2 feet wide. It sands four feet high at one end and two feet at the other. It has vents cut into both sides, and the door that is under cover on the coop side is actually made of wood frame and construction wire to breath.

I put pine shavings in at first. I also have been putting water and food in the coop to get them comfortable and have a reason to come stay at night. I have a plastic pan under the water to catch the spillage.

I also added straw as I read that is good for ducks. I do not use straw for the chickens - just pine shavings.

Right now, after three nights of use - the duck coop is a disaster! The straw is all wadded up and poop fused to the floor, walls...and more.

I've never seen this type of mess - there are three ducks...and I've had up to 7 chickens in a slightly larger coop.

What's the deal? Live with it - clean it every three days? ...go back to just pine?

I have two females, and expect them to lay eggs at some point - and would prefer they do it in the coop/hutch.

 

[DuckyDonna]

I don't mean to laugh but I am! How old are your ducks? Depending on their age they might not need to have food and water in their little pen at night which will cut down on a massive amount of the mess you are experiencing!

I have 7 Runners. In the morning I open their pen door, and they run out. I put their food bucket out, collect the eggs and then take a garden fork and take out the big pooped on hay and throw it in their run.

At night I clean out and refill their 4 water buckets (dump the dirty water on my sweet potato bins) and their kiddie pool and lock them up in their pen where they are safe for the night. I think the whole day's chores might take me 30-40 minutes together.

Ducks are messy like little piggies but they are so much fun. You just have to get into a routine as far as the chores that you do every day.

 

[Waskoneto]

Ducks are as messy as they are cute! I suggest you make a water trap to set the waterer on. I used a cake pan with a kabob roaster on top. It would catch all the water mess and would only need to be emptied once a day. It sure limited the wet and nasty bedding! Also... good luck on getting them to lay in the coop! Ducks tend to lay outside in the high grass or shrubs. We have a coop with an attached outdoor run that's available at all times and I think I've only seen them in the coop once.....and that was just to check out the baby chicks I had just put in there.

 

[DuckyDonna]

At 6 weeks you can take away the water and food and they'll be fine. In the summer when it's really Georgia HOT I will put a 1/2 filled water bucket in their pen with a tray underneath it for them. The tray really helps like Waskoneto said.

My girls mostly lay in their pen early in the morning but sometimes an egg just falls out of their butt while in the run too. I don't let them free range. Too many predators around here. They are fenced in and netted over the top.

 

[chickens really]

Hello..I use pine shavings all summer and then in winter I use pine shavings and straw to keep them warmer.
Yes, depending on their age they don't need food and water at night..

 

[McChics]

this is all excellent info. I plan on taking the water/food up at the end of this week. I think I'll go back to just pine in there for now and see how it goes. I still need to work through the best way of getting them free run of the run and general area. I'll post up some pics when I can of the general lay out.

The pic in my avatar is out-dated. That is my main coop, but I've since moved it twice and it now has other mods and the ducks are built off the side of it.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Thank you very much for the morning laugh! I have seventeen of those weapons of mass poopification, sometimes i can't imagine how their poop got where i found it…
My ducks sleep on a wooden platform that the previous owners of my house had built for their dog. I have added walls secured it with chicken wire and divided the interior into two bedrooms and a large dining/living area where they have access to food and water 24/7.
My coop article: The Platform Ducks - from zero to duck in an instance!
Coop Album: Pictures of the platform duck house
Feel free to copy and paste.

Ducks like to have access to water at any time, i have observed them getting up in the middle of the night, walk to the waterer, get a sip, put the bill into the food and walk straight back to bed - like us plundering the fridge at night. It might not be a necessity but my ducks like it very much. One evening their waterer was empty when i herded them into the house and they immediately complained loudly.
In the bedrooms i use everything i can get my hands on, except wood shavings!!! Straw works best to keep everybody clean and dry. Straw has a large surface and the open structure directs any poop down and away from the ducks where it can then dry out. Second best is hay, but my ducks rather eat that than using it as their bed, except for their nests which are neatly lined with several layers of hay. My ducks don't poop into their nests! During the fall time i use dry leafs as bedding, my ducks especially enjoy the large leafs from our tulip-tree, they are large and crack(le) so beautiful when they step on them. At first they were scared of the pile of dry leaves, but after a while they loved it.
I don't recommend wood shavings for one simple reason: They are flat, two dimensional. As a result they form a layered poop lasagna which will never be able to dry out and will grow mold in the deeper parts. Second, wood shavings don't compost as fast as poop-covered hay or straw.

 

[McChics]

My coop article: The Platform Ducks - from zero to duck in an instance!

WOW - that's a duck palace! Dang...you really re-purposed that deck into something amazing.

I guess I'll wait to see how it does in there once I take the water out.

 

[Waskoneto]

I have a security system and one of the 8 cameras is aimed right at the ducks coop and run. Every hour my piggies are getting up to get water. I'd say if there's any reasonable way to offer water at night, I would.

 

[McChics]

I pulled out the mix of straw and pine shavings and put more straw in yesterday. Last night they found their way into the hutch after dark on their own. I had the heat lamp on to light it up and the food/water in the coop waiting. Once they were in, I locked it up and turned the heat lamp off. It was 42 last night, but they have proven they are fine. I just took a screen shot of them. They are snoozing in the pool by the hutch/coop. That is just a 3' walmart pool. I've got a six foot pool and will eventually drop an 8 foot metal one in from Tractor Supply. This is just to integrate them as I try to figure out this area. The fence around the pool area is all new temporary while I get them integrated with the chicken flock. Today is the first day they all have access to each other and nobody is home.