Welcome to BYC! It's a great group, VERY helpful with all my many questions. I'm a total newbie to poultry, so take all this as such....
I'm really loving my 5 month old Welsh Harlequins. They were super-calm until they were about 3 months old; then suffered from adolescent angst for a few months, and became terrified of everything; and now are super-calm again! Gardening with them is like gardening with talkative toddlers- who eat dirt and slugs... they're right underfoot and interested in everything I do.
I have 5 (all girls) and I only change the kiddie pool once a week; my duck care bible, Dave Holderread's "Raising Ducks", says to never let the water get "putrid"- it looks dirty the same day I fill it up! After a week, it's pretty dark water, but it doesn't smell bad.... They do love the clean water on Pool Party Day, though, and I give them 3 dish pans, and a 3 gallon waterer, of clean drinking water each day, in the fenced garden area where they are during daylight hours. (That's also dark brown at the end of the day.)
I'm doing the deep litter method in my duck house (pics on my BYC page) - I sprinkle some wood chips over any poopy areas inside their walk-in, concrete floored coop, once a day (there's no water in there; I have a water porch attached, which drains well over sand and gravel). In 4 months, the interior hasn't needed a full change out, doesn't smell, and is nice and dry. I have to clean the chips out of the water porch area every few weeks- it does get VERY wet from all the playing they do with their drinking water.
We have a private hand-dug well, and I'd probably give them fresh pool water every day if I wasn't worried about the well going dry!
Everyone's answered your questions, & have a lot more experience than I do- so I thought I'd just chime in with what's working for me. (And hopefully people will tell me if I'm going to kill the poor things with the once-a-week pool water changing!)
