duck pool question

[lovinlife]

Honestly, the ducks are nasty. They poop in their pool and make it all nasty in less than a day. I dump it every other day and refill with clean water and you'd think they never had clean water before. They go nuts bathing themselves and playing in the clean water.

I love having ducks, though!

So, tell me what you do with your duck pools. Do you empty and refill your pool every day?
Do you just top it off with more water?
Those of you with bigger pools, how often do you empty it?
I know people with concrete pools that are quite large. They only clean them out once a year. The bottom of those pools must be NASTY. What do you do?

 

[Moochie]

I am also wondering what other people do.. I try to change mine every other day, but when it get's too gross I gotta do it and it smells like turtle tank :[

 

[SassyKat6181]

The ducks don't seem to care if the pool is clean or dirty....heck, they bathe in the large water dish half the time. With over 50 birds, horses, dogs, cats and 2 small children, the pool gets emptied and rinsed out about every other day. The water looks all nice and clean, and as soon as the first duck jumps in, forget it.

But they are well worth having, especially just to sit and watch what my 3 yr old calls "duck tv"

 

[Going Quackers]

We just have a simple kiddy pool.. i 'flood' it daily, which means i let the hose run in it till it starts to pour out the sides and then dump it entirely every other day.. surprisingly mine are not to bad with it. We were doing it more often but being on a well and rather hot and dry i don't want to over tax my well.

 

[TLWR]

Small kiddie pool was changed daily.
Large (with slide) kiddie pool was changed every 4 days or so when it wasn't surface of the sun hot out. That heat had me changing on day 3 as they ducks would avoid it by then.
Now, with their 900 gallon pond, I drained and cleaned it at a month and the ducks were still happy to be in it. We have a pool skimmer that we keep surface stuff clean and then use it along the bottom every few days to scoop up what nastiness we can from the bottom. The water is green. Some days it seems to take on a brown tint, but the algae covers it most times. It doesn't stink and the ducks don't avoid it. It has been topped off in the last few days with rain water as we've had a crap ton of rain in the last 3 days.
I'd love to find a vacuum system that doesn't drain any water from the pond and still clean the bottom without spending a fortune to keep the poop level down which will hopefully control the algae a bit more.

 

[Supermommy486]

I'm still figuring this out myself. I have been 'flooding' it but changing it out every 2 days which has been very hard since I have the "it HAS to be clean water" mentality from dealing with the chickens. I just have to remind myself that they swim in ponds and lakes and seem to be fine with non-crystal clear water every day.

 

[lovinlife]

Glad to know what I'm dealing with is normal!

Sounds like I'm doing the right thing and my ducks are normal. I wish they would hold their poop until they got out of the pool, but that's not going to happen. LOL.

I see so many nice-looking pools on here and I wonder if others do what I do and save the picture-taking for after the water is changed out.

 

[TLWR]

Quote:
Absolutely

Though with the pond, it is dark from the algae, so I don't worry about it anymore as it doesn't look like nasty poop water!

 

[1234duck]

I use a good sized kiddie pool for my ducks to swim in & there are currently 5 of them in use everyday. Basically they each have their own pool b/c I have the drakes each penned up by them selves. I empty the pools everyday unless there not gross. If a pool is not gross I empty halfway & refill with fresh. If dirty & gross i empty & fill with fresh cold water. Now that the weather is so hot i have been mostly everyday empty and refilling pools b/c the water is real warm in them. And every 3 days i have to scrub each pool b/c they start to get slimy. Fresh drinking water 2x a day if not fresh pool water that day. Its a chore.

~Julie~

 

[showjumper_girl2002]

I have a large kiddy pool and I clean it for them every day... not just cuz it looks gross but more b/c of the smell

lol. I love my duckies though and love watching them play in it