how to control the mess?

[Mommysongbird]

Hi, new to ducks this year and we really love them, but hate the mess. How do you control the mess???

We have 6 ducks, 2 mallards, 2 Pekin and now 2 Khaki Campbell. They are in a pen with 5 bantam chicks and all are between 13 weeks and 6 months. We are adding a new pen for the ducks ONLY in a few more days, I hope. Right now we are working on a new run for the ducks and chickens.

The ducks use a child's water table for there "play" water inside the pen they are in, the big run has a child's pool in it and the new pen will have a child's pool in it as well, the water table will probably be moved out to the big run.

With chickens living in the next pen, the ducks are making their pen a muddy mess. We have done straw fairly thick, but it is all gone again. Also been doing DE for the smell and the rain has not helped with any of this.

What else can we do????

 

[Amiga]

I do well with straw, a 2% slope into a small channel that leads to a raised garden bed, and now a mix of pea gravel and sand right around the swim pans.

When the weather warms, I need to spend more time turning the straw and adding fresh (it composts in place, which attracts worms for fun and nutrition), and staying on top of the area around the swim pans. Oak leaves help keep odor down.

But it's not onerous. I probably spend extra time twice a week.

The swim pan area needs the most attention. I have to shovel out the rich stuff from time to time (weekly in warm wet weather, every couple of weeks if it's been fairly dry and cool, hardly ever if the temperatures stay in the 40s F.