I'm sick of cleanin duck house daily. What do you do?

[needlessjunk]

Well I to I'm getting frustrated having to clean this 4' x 3' Duck house raise off the ground, it's inside a enclosed pen. The floor is wood slats. I lay two large garbage bags down then two large rubber shelving mats, so they don't slip and then straw. When I clean which is every other day it's totally poopy and I only have two magpie ducks. I roll it all up dump the straw in a wheel barrel and rinse off the garbage bags and the rubber mats and hang to dry. I have a second set of bags and rubber mats to change out. I rinse the floor out with a hose cause they do get poop on the sides of the inside of the house. I can not picture doing this in the winter! There's has to be a easier way! Any good idea's anybody???

What about putting horse stall mats down to cover the slats and use shavings or straw. I use pine shavings and just pick out the dirty spots daily, turn it all over and add more shavings as needed. I only clean it out completely once a month maybe longer. Do you have food and water in the coop. If so I would take it out.

 

[JulieJo1216]

No I don't keep the water or food in there duck house. Stall mats for a 4' x 4' floor I think was 30.00 I will have to look it back up again good idea on that and the pine shavings too sounds easier then to pick out the poop with straw. But I have herd something about pine shaving and the dust the ducks will breath and cause repertory problems?? How old are your ducks?

 

[needlessjunk]

No I don't keep the water or food in there duck house. Stall mats for a 4' x 4' floor I think was 30.00 I will have to look it back up again good idea on that and the pine shavings too sounds easier then to pick out the poop with straw. But I have herd something about pine shaving and the dust the ducks will breath and cause repertory problems?? How old are your ducks?

I use pine shaving from 3 days on and my current ducks are 16 weeks, 6 months and one is just under a year. I buy the larger flake shavings and haven't found them to be too bad as far as dust goes. Another option instead of stall mats would be to make a solid food with plywood and seal/paint it. My floors are painted with a gritty deck paint so now one slips and we have some leftover.

 

[JulieJo1216]

That's a great idea with the decking paint, I like that idea. Stall mats are way too expensive for something like this. Thanks for all your great ideas. There's hope yet lol

 

[JulieJo1216]

Ok my two Ducklings are 6 weeks now they are magpie ducks. They are getting a blues green tint to there feathers is that a sign they are drakes

 

[DucksAndGardens]

Reber Ranch in Kent carries DE.

I also suggest removing water at night. My ducklings are only 3 weeks old but I remove the water at night because they tend to play in it more than drink it and since I remove their feed they don't really need the water. Mine are in the house on shavings but no heat lamp now (except for one sickly duckling). I have a wire raised platform that I set their water on, and I put a dish under that to catch the water but I still have to clean up the shavings around the water every day but their "pen" is a 4X4 so the rest of the bedding stays pretty dry. I take a small rake and rake the top layer off every morning and every evening and then add more as needed for the dry areas. As long as the bedding is deep you can just remove the top poop layer. I take their water and food out at 9pm and then they are fine until I get up at 6am. Their bedding dries out overnight if it was damp because of where I have their pen. Since yours are outside you could easily just leave their food and water outside overnight. Then the only thing you would have to do is rake the top layer of shavings off to clean up their poop and the bedding underneath should be pretty dry.

 

[Amiga]

These have some ideas


https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/641902/created-a-water-saver-for-my-duck-brooder

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/679433/water-water-everywhere/10

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/858161/feed-water-solution-for-brooder#post_12901321

http://frankiemakes.blogspot.ca/2012/06/watering-solution-for-ducks.html

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/259876/do-your-ducks-have-water-at-night/10#post_13568197

 

[CyndiD]

when you put them in at night just do not give them water!  they will be fine as long as you dont put them in at like 4PM and not let them out till like 10 AM the next day!  Or you could put a wire front on the dog house and latch them in and have a bowl of water outside so they can just reach out and drink, but not slop it all over!  We just put our call duck babies on our new raised pens we made!  They are great and I recomend them to anyone raising  call ducks.

@ Lund Poultry, hi i realize this post is 5 yrs old, but i am wondering what ur "raised pens" looks like? Can u post pics? I will ck ur personal pics to see if i can find them.
Have ur housing methods changed much in t/past 5 yrs?
Thanks

 

[BelValleyDaisy]

hi.
my 2 rouhen clairs when they were ducklings went outside at age 2 and a half weeks and before then after about a week and a half we would put them in a little pen during the day and watch them. Yes they will always be very messy but you will get used to it and there are ways of making it easier. Firstly, as they are so young straw is best for them even though it is HELL. they make it incredibly messy and gross and smelly but it needs doing and you will always have to clean them everyday only it wouldn't be as gross. I went on holiday for 2 nights and left them to it in their aviary and when they had straw it would've been unbearable but it wasn't because we used dust extracted sawdust. We introduced sawdust at about 3months old. when i watched them with it they would purposely try to annoy me by eating it but it doesn't taste at all nice to them so they will stop. Make sure they are at least 3 months though because any younger they will think it is food. it is much easier and on a morning you can just scrape out the poop bits and put a little more saw dust in. it works a treat. though if you are keeping water in them for the night (which they will always need) it can be a bit messier.

What we did was got a flimsy, not sharp piece of plastic sheet and lay it in the bottom. Then placed a piece of cardboard on top to fill the space. Then sprinkle saw dust all over it but making sure that it is quite thick otherwise they will just soak the cardboard through making it a gross job cleaning it all out again.
Hope i helped @Jody