Quote:
My 2 ducklings (a bit over 5 weeks old now) live in my bedroom and I haven't had any problems with smell (unless I get lazy and skip cleaning their brooder one day...) Obviously controlling the smell from 2 ducklings is a lot easier than 26, but I thought I'd share how I deal with smell.
I use horse stall bedding for my ducklings. They've been using it since they were about 6 days old (before that it was puppy pads and shelf liner to give them better traction). Initially they'd taste the saw dust to see if it was edible, but within a couple hours they learned it wasn't and stopped trying to eat it.
The bedding does a great job at drying out the poop (with the help of ducks trampling the poop too
). Dry poop doesn't smell.
I always wet it before putting it in their brooder so that it's just saw dust instead of pellets. I fill a 5 gallon bucket about 1/3 full with pellets, then pour in enough water to just get the surface wet. I tend mix it up to ensure that not just the pellets at the bottom absorb the water. Sometimes I use a hand shovel/spade, other times I just shake the bucket using a flipping motion to turn over the pellets (similar motion as flipping pancakes in a pan). I try to make it a day in advance so that it can dry out a bit, but that's not essential. You probably need enough that it'll be easier to dump the pellets in the brooder then wet it afterwards whenever you completely change out the bedding.
I mix in Sweet PDZ which is a similar product as DE but is allegedly better at absorbing ammonia.
I only have 2 ducklings so I usually just put about 1.5 inches of the sawdust and Sweet PDZ mixture in the brooder. You might want to make yours deeper for better absorption. For a 6x8 foot oval brooder, I'd guess you'd need between 1/2 to 3/4 of a 50lbs bag of horse stall pellets to get a good deep bedding. Fortunately the stuff is cheap.
For clean up, I scoop out the wet bedding by the waterer - the stuff is really good at wicking away moisture so I end up having to scoop out the area as far as a foot from the water. With 26 ducklings, you might have a lot more to scoop... I clean off all the hard surfaces with a pet safe bleach (Chlorox Anywhere is the name I think).
For the drier areas, I scrape the surface layer of poop, turn over the bedding, spread it out to cover the areas I scooped out wet bedding, and top it off with fresh bedding. I change out all of the bedding once a week or so.
One "problem" with saw dust is that the water gets mucked up really fast. However, the water generally doesn't stink unless the ducks decide to drag lots of poop in there (at which point the problem is the poop, not the saw dust).
I find using the tallest possible waterer to be very useful in reducing mess and stink. In my experience, the lower to the ground the opening to the waterer is, the more water they drag out. Obviously, preventing the ducks from getting into the water will reduce mess too.
For my ducklings, the waterer is directly on the bedding (actually partially buried so they won't knock it over or move it around). For our adult ducks, in one pen the waterer sits on wire mesh so it can drain into a basin. In the other pen (the temporary pen until we build one big enough for all 6 ducks), the waterer sits in a large basin the is directly on the bedding. Just cleaning the basins is enough to all but eliminate smell for both pens - which is really important since they all live indoors.
Keeping the food and water as far from each other as reasonable helps a ton with the water mess. It seems like ducks drink more then eating if they don't have to walk far. I guess that's like people that drink more water at dinner if someone keeps refilling their glass.
I hope that helps!
My 2 ducklings (a bit over 5 weeks old now) live in my bedroom and I haven't had any problems with smell (unless I get lazy and skip cleaning their brooder one day...) Obviously controlling the smell from 2 ducklings is a lot easier than 26, but I thought I'd share how I deal with smell.
I use horse stall bedding for my ducklings. They've been using it since they were about 6 days old (before that it was puppy pads and shelf liner to give them better traction). Initially they'd taste the saw dust to see if it was edible, but within a couple hours they learned it wasn't and stopped trying to eat it.
The bedding does a great job at drying out the poop (with the help of ducks trampling the poop too
I always wet it before putting it in their brooder so that it's just saw dust instead of pellets. I fill a 5 gallon bucket about 1/3 full with pellets, then pour in enough water to just get the surface wet. I tend mix it up to ensure that not just the pellets at the bottom absorb the water. Sometimes I use a hand shovel/spade, other times I just shake the bucket using a flipping motion to turn over the pellets (similar motion as flipping pancakes in a pan). I try to make it a day in advance so that it can dry out a bit, but that's not essential. You probably need enough that it'll be easier to dump the pellets in the brooder then wet it afterwards whenever you completely change out the bedding.
I mix in Sweet PDZ which is a similar product as DE but is allegedly better at absorbing ammonia.
I only have 2 ducklings so I usually just put about 1.5 inches of the sawdust and Sweet PDZ mixture in the brooder. You might want to make yours deeper for better absorption. For a 6x8 foot oval brooder, I'd guess you'd need between 1/2 to 3/4 of a 50lbs bag of horse stall pellets to get a good deep bedding. Fortunately the stuff is cheap.
For clean up, I scoop out the wet bedding by the waterer - the stuff is really good at wicking away moisture so I end up having to scoop out the area as far as a foot from the water. With 26 ducklings, you might have a lot more to scoop... I clean off all the hard surfaces with a pet safe bleach (Chlorox Anywhere is the name I think).
For the drier areas, I scrape the surface layer of poop, turn over the bedding, spread it out to cover the areas I scooped out wet bedding, and top it off with fresh bedding. I change out all of the bedding once a week or so.
One "problem" with saw dust is that the water gets mucked up really fast. However, the water generally doesn't stink unless the ducks decide to drag lots of poop in there (at which point the problem is the poop, not the saw dust).
I find using the tallest possible waterer to be very useful in reducing mess and stink. In my experience, the lower to the ground the opening to the waterer is, the more water they drag out. Obviously, preventing the ducks from getting into the water will reduce mess too.
For my ducklings, the waterer is directly on the bedding (actually partially buried so they won't knock it over or move it around). For our adult ducks, in one pen the waterer sits on wire mesh so it can drain into a basin. In the other pen (the temporary pen until we build one big enough for all 6 ducks), the waterer sits in a large basin the is directly on the bedding. Just cleaning the basins is enough to all but eliminate smell for both pens - which is really important since they all live indoors.
Keeping the food and water as far from each other as reasonable helps a ton with the water mess. It seems like ducks drink more then eating if they don't have to walk far. I guess that's like people that drink more water at dinner if someone keeps refilling their glass.
I hope that helps!
Last edited:
