How to keep the duck coop clean!

[cheezenkwackers]

Just for night time, so I’ll try the shavings, thanks! It does have a top tarp. Does it matter which sides I tarp?

Tarp the sides that face the direction storms and wind come from.

 

[amberchickens]

Everyone here pretty much covered everything. I just wanted to add that I have been really loving pine pellets for my ducks. They break down when wet so you don't end up with a water logged pile of bedding. I rake everything once a day to mix up the broken down pellets and anything that's even slightly damp dries out very quickly after a quick rake. I also ordered what are technically cat litter boxes off of chewy.com and I set 2 gallon water buckets that I got from tractor supply in them. They catch quite a bit of the water that would otherwise end up on the ground.
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I love these ideas, especially the litter boxes! Where do you get the pine pellets? Like for wood burning stoves? We used to use them for ferret litter for the same reason when I kept ferrets!

 

[HollowOfWisps]

I love these ideas, especially the litter boxes! Where do you get the pine pellets? Like for wood burning stoves? We used to use them for ferret litter for the same reason when I kept ferrets!

Tractor supply in the livestock area is where I get mine. This is what the bag looks like (Google pic)

 

[KaleIAm]

That's a lot of birds to have in that little space.

I have 2 ducks in a 10x10 barn room and a 30x30 aviary and it stays pretty clean. I still only let them have water/food outside in the aviary during the day. I still spot clean every couple of days and haul away a 5 gallon bucket or two of bedding every week. I have to reseed the grass a couple times a year to keep it lush under their delicate feet.

I used to have 6 ducks in this space, and I had to spot clean daily and empty the entire barn room once weekly. It was very hard to keep clean.

 

[ruthhope]

6 ducks, 2 geese. I think the pen is 6’x9’ and they will be free ranging part time as of next week. Would you recommend keeping their food and water outside once they’re allowed out during the day?

Tarp the sides that face the direction storms and wind come from.

@amberchickens I think the size is adequate for overnight for your number of ducks and geese, so long as they are outside with more space during the day.

I think the advice re securing the structure is good. I would put tarps on three sides. I use tarps on my duck house and have one side with the tarp reaching the ground and pegged there with tent pegs during the winter. But in the warmer months, I turn it back up on itself, double, so that the lower half of the side is open. I use small bungee cords as fasteners on that side, but zip ties where the tarp is fixed elsewhere.

What is your underlying soil like? That can make a difference to what you use to keep the ground clean. I am on very sandy soil. My ducks quickly ate the grass that came up through the hardware cloth floor, and then I started using deep litter and have no problems with mess or smell. I do have water for my ducks in their duck house, but I have very sandy soil that drains quickly.

For deep litter, I have not tried the pine pellets that @HollowOfWisps recommends. I use pine shavings, also from Tractor Supply. I am in NE Florida and have a ready supply of dried oak leaves -- that I collect from round my neighborhood each spring, and store for use year round. My duck coop bottom layer is oak leaves. Then I use pine shavings on top. Theoretically, I scoop out nasty messes each morning and add more bedding, but in practice I dont get much poopy mess, I just get wet patches where the ducks are drinking and dab washing in their water. So I add more oak leaves over the wet patches and more pine shaving bedding on top. The bedding gets compressed down with ducky traffic and my weight walking in there twice day.

I just raked out the top 8 or so inches of compressed deep litter from in my duck coop, that had built up over 9 months. I left behind probably 2 inches and put down a layer of clean pine shavings on top. The raked out bedding went onto my mulch heap [I have compost barrels but I also use oak leaf mulch on my garden, and the deep litter will get extra leaves dug into it and then used as mulch on my garden in the fall.] The raked out bedding was warm from composting down in the layers. That keeps the ducks warm in the winter.

A lot of us on this forum use deep litter bedding in our coops and I am sure others can chime in and tell you how easy it is to manage. I note that the pine pellets that @HollowOfWisps recommends are bio degradable and so I will check them out next time I need to buy bedding. For me cost, as well as my need to make mulch with the used bedding, is an important factor. The pine shavings are inexpensive and last several weeks. A third factor, is that my ducks like their bedding! But I am going to check out the alternative