Ducks and deep litter discussion

[DuckyDonna]

I use deep litter with hay on wood floors too. I do not have food and water at night unless it is very hot which I think makes a huge difference. Every morning I use my spade fork and carefully get under any massive poop piles or those flattened poops that are obvious and just throw them out into the yard. I try to leave as much of the clean hay as I can. When it gets more broken down out in the yard I put it in the garden.

In the winter I keep the hay much thicker (about 1+ foot) but this time of the year I use about 1/2 the hay. It's working great for me and when I did a full clean out this spring I was pleased that the floor was not wet at all.

Maybe because I don't just leave all the poop in there I'm not really doing deep litter? I'm not changing out the hay all the time, I am adding to it a couple of times a week at the most, and not very much at that.

 

[Trimurtisan]

This is pretty awesome. Some nice tips and different ways of going about it. Thanks for sharing your experiences everybody.

I'm hoping to have our duck house operational this weekend and start in on this myself.

 

[markntracy3]

Hey there folks.

I've been doing a ton of research in order to build a duck house. When I came across deep litter I liked the idea, but there doesn't seem to be much info on it in regards to ducks.

I read the thread at...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/does-deep-litter-method-really-work-for-ducks.850382/
but that thread is 5 years old, and most of the members are no longer active.

I wrote @Miss Lydia to see if she still used the method, to which she does. She also suggested starting this thread, so here I am.

While reading through...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/deep-litter-method.70/
I noticed a few people added their own touch to the process, (DE, yearly, semi-yearly, so on). However most of it was directly for chicken. (It's 245 pages, sorry if I missed a duck chunk). I'd love to hear who does it, if you have any special touches, and generally how you feel about it.

I find it to be a bit fascinating myself. Duck waste compost is one of the biggest benefits to me of having the ducks. However I've been cleaning the hay/shavings every couple of days and it's a bit of pain, even for the compost benefit.

Anyways, topic is up for discussion (hopefully )... What are your opinions?

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I personally use wood pellets (horse bedding) with hay on top, cleanest duck coop i ever had.....i rake it out so much easier for me and cleaner for ducks

 

[Miss Lydia]

When do duckling arrive @Trimurtisan

 

[Trimurtisan]

When do duckling arrive @Trimurtisan

Hatch date is today, so hopefully by Saturday.

 

[Dees ducks]

I am doing deep litter on wood floors with vinyl over. Works great.

Hi Miss Lydia, I'm doing exactly the same!!!! I have a converted wooden shed with a very big dog house inside. Both the shed and dog house has cheap vinyl floor. The dog house is deep in bedding, however, the ducks mostly poop outside the dog house. Therefore, I simply go in each morning, pick up any poop if inside the dog house, give the bedding a quick fluff up then lightly mop the rest of the shed. Works like a charm!!!!

 

[designbyaleks]

I have 5, 5-week old ducklings which will be culled to 3 before winter, and they’re free-range on our 1.5 acre property so they mostly hang out on grass (except when they for some reason decide interlock is where they want to settle for a nap). We have an enclosure for night-time - a duck tractor that’s about 8sq ft enclosed, vinyl floor plus deep litter and the fence-covered portion wherever the tractor happens to be in the yard. They are in there only at night but 5 make more waste for sure than our design intended for. Since they are young, we also have a feeder and waterer inside for now. All to say, our straw is somewhat wet, but not terrible. No smell either... BUT we do have tiny vinegar flies in there... much like my compost pile. I’m wondering if that’s ok? I know the straw is not absorbent, so I’m thinking of mixing in pine shavings over a base of barn lime, all of that on top of the vinyl... would that be a good approach? Should I stick with what I have, provided the tiny flies aren’t bad?

 

[corriemartin]

I'm glad to come across this thread. I'm seven months new to ducks and chickens, and from the reading I've done, deep little seems to be the way to go. The chickens kept everything all fluffed up all the time, but once we moved them into their tractor and had them on actual pasture, we moved ducks in there, and, as you all have been saying, they tend to pack things down, and now that it's getting cold I'm thinking it's too damp in there.

I have an almost unlimited supply of wood chips, which I put on the ground, and have been adding shavings, a couple inches at a time. I stir everything up with a pitchfork every couple of days, and when it was hot (up until last week), it all dried out during the day, but now that it's cold, it's definitely damp. It doesn't smell at all, and they don't seem to mind it. And it's certainly not as wet as the duck tank where they nap IN the water when it's 32F, but not dry either. I'm not sure what to do about that, except keep adding more shavings.

My night waterer is a 5 gallon bucket with a few headholes cut in it, placed inside a larger basin to catch drips.

 

[designbyaleks]

Remove the night waterer... provided you’re letting them out early mornings and putting them in late (say 7am/7pm), they are fine without in the cold months and we’ve found it makes all the difference. If it’s very cold (ie they need to stay indoors all day during a big snow storm or something) we put the waterer back in, but just controlling the water has helped immensely because it also reduces the droppings.

 

[corriemartin]

Remove the night waterer... provided you’re letting them out early mornings and putting them in late (say 7am/7pm), they are fine without in the cold months and we’ve found it makes all the difference. If it’s very cold (ie they need to stay indoors all day during a big snow storm or something) we put the waterer back in, but just controlling the water has helped immensely because it also reduces the droppings.

I considered that, but with the days getting shorter, they're inside longer--like maybe 6 pm (soon to be 5 pm) to perhaps 8 am, so 14 hours. But I might have to if I can't figure out another way to make it drier. Maybe not having a waterer where they can actually dip their whole head in..... and a bigger basin underneath.....