Duck pen smell!

[carlyducks]

Hello, I have my duck pen on cement with a thick layer of straw. When it gets wet, it gets this strong swamp like smell and it can be bad. Does anyone know a way to help this? Maybe something different than straw? Do coop deodorizers really work? Thanks!

 

[Jpat]

if its dry it wont smell

Composting smells earthy so mabye its wet and wrotting and the duck poop is putting off amonia

Clean and dry never smells

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I would cover the cement with a 1-2" layer of dry peat moss and then add the straw on top of that.

 

[chickens really]

Hmmm? If it's concrete you don't need anything but bedding in the house and hose it off daily. I have a sidewalk block bottom of my Nursery pen and hose it daily.
Straw is best in winter because it remains dry ..
I also use sand in all my other runs and turn it a couple times a week.

 

[Duckworth]

We are having the same issue here, with storm after storm. Nothing ever gets dry this time of year, here. We have a wood floor under our pen, due to local regulations, so we have the same trouble with excess water. I use Sweet PDZ daily during wet months and a few times a week during unfrozen, but drier weather. It helps, but when things get really wet, mucking out is all we can do.

This morning, I mucked out the top layer of soaked straw/poop mixture into a wheelbarrow and put it down the center of one of my tomato beds. My husband is out doing the second half, now.

I grow my tomatoes on trellis arches that cover the 12-foot length of the beds and plant my tomatoes along both sides of the bottom of the arches, leaving the space under the arches open. I put all of my duck muck and rabbit droppings in that open space, where it finishes composting and rain washes the nutrients into the soil. I try to put duck muck in right before it rains or when I have time to water it in right away to minimize odor.

Sorry everything looks so untidy. With all of this rain, we have weeds going crazy. I also have compost piles/bins that I put muck into to finish composting when I run out of garden beds to put it on. The nice thing about straw for us is that it makes good mulch once the poop washes through, it’s cheap, and readily available in our area.

We have hard winters, here, so everything freezes and stays frozen for a few months. The duck muck is fine, then. I just add more straw. When it thaws, I muck it out to give my vegetable garden beds an early spring feeding in preparation for late spring planting.

After we muck out today, we will not put in new bedding until this round of storms passes. I’ll just hose out every morning. Drier weather should show up in a week or two and we can go back to straw and deep litter then.

 

[MagpieDucks]

Always keep some type of bedding on the concrete to prevent bumble foot.

 

[Timothy Menezes]

My current duck run sounds much like yours, concrete floor, wire walls, with a tin roof. It’s fairly most of the year but in winter I have to shovel out the straw every few weeks to keep it smelling fresh. Lucky for me straw is so cheap!