Keeping Pen clean

[duckmanor]

We have aprox 12 x 14 pen with large coop attached. The pen has a dirt, sand, then gravel layer with a french drain in the middle of the pen in the beginning (Last year) we were able to just hose out the pen and coop and keep it nice and clean, now it seems that they are a year old they are pooping much more, and the gravel is caked with poops. what is your advice on keeping this clean, getting the smell down without using DH.

Do you lay hay outside in your pens? Any and all advice would be helpful. They free range for an hour a day at this point but are mostly in their coop and pen.

 

[MysticalMom]

I use hay or straw in all my pens. When it's dirty I just use the pitch fork and pitch it and add new straw. Easy peasy.

 

[chickboss]

This may not help but I personally am a huge fan of sand and a kitty litter scoop. This is what is in my chicken coop and I will be using it for what ever poultry I keep that is not being rotated on pasture. I know ducks are messier, but to give you an idea, I have eight chickens in a large coop with a sand floor, and it take less than five minutes in the morning to scoop away any solid waste, which I then put in a bucket, and when the bucket is full, I take it to the compost pile. LOL, I just wish someone would make a larger kitty litter scoop, because then it would take 2 seconds. After experimenting with hay/straw, I think it is too expensive given that it has to be replaced or added to very often whereas the sand will last for a very, very long time. From what I understand though, straw is cheaper in some other regions than it is here.

 

[vlapinta]

Do you think Hay or stray works better than wood shavings? I am getting ready to put my (first ducks ever) 4 week call ducks in their new pen. I have been using wood shavings for the brooder. I also started a compost bin, but I am changing the shavings so often the compost bin is filling up very quickly. I am wondering if hay or straw might work better. It might be easier to get it out of the pen.
The only thing that is in the back of my mind is there was a thread abut someone's chicks dying beacause it turns out the hay was moldy and they couldn't see it. If hay gets wet does it mold more quickly than wood shavings?
Just tossing it around in my head.
Vicki

 

[duckyfromoz]

I use a mixture of shaving and hay in my night pens for my ducks. The pens are in my garage and I have Lino on the ground- so no moisture can be absobred into the ground- so that is why I sprinkle a fine layer of shavings first before adding the hay. The shavings just make it easier to pick up the hay- which just becomes a tangled mess within a few days. They free range all day and are just locked up at night. Cleaning the pens every 2-3 days- may mean a lot of work- but doesnt allow the growth of mold in the bedding.

 

[Sweetfolly]

Quote:
Hay is NOT a good bedding, because it molds very quickly. Hay can contain all sorts of different dried grasses and plants, and is meant to be eaten, not pooped in.

Straw (which is comprised of the dry, hollow stalks that remain after grains like oats or wheat are harvested) DOES make good bedding for ducks, and it's what I use. I can get moldy too, but not as quickly as hay will. You just have to be sure to remove the wet or soiled straw every day (or every couple days, if you're lazy like me

). I generally pay around $2/square bale around here, and about 25 bales lasts for almost a year (for my 29 ducks).

I've used wood shavings too (and I'm sure I will again in the future), but if water gets spilled in one little area, the shavings tend to all cake together, and I end up going through a LOT of it. I can buy a bag of it here that's about the same size as a square bale of straw for $5, but it lasts half as long as the straw does, and it's twice the price of the straw! The one big pro to using wood shavings is that they don't tend to get moldy like hay or straw does. But, if you're cleaning your pens properly, mold should never have time to form at all, no matter what bedding you're using.

 

[duckmanor]

well we tried the sand in the very beginning and with the weather we have in IL, the rain, snow, etc... the sand went into the dirt and became muddy poop quickly so my next question is: If I try the sand again#1 how much in inches do you put down? #2 how do you keep the sand from going into the dirt?

If I opt for hay the question I have is how often do you take the hay out? and where do you put it when you are done do you have a compost bin?

Love the help you gave me thanks a million!!

 

[chickboss]

I live in Oregon, so I hear you about the mud. Not so much snow, but I do get some. The sand in my coop is deep, at least 9-10 inches, if not 12. For outdoors, I am going to put down a gravel layer 4-5 inches deep and then put the sand on top of that at about 10 inches or so. The thing is, though, that I have a creek that deposits large quanities of sand along the banks, as well as gravel sized stones, so my cost is small, but the labor intensive because the creek is at the bottom of our property, and up and comming permenent runs are closer to the top, and our property is pretty steep. I don't know how much all this would cost if I had to buy it. I have had to pick through wet sand before, and it is harder to do than with dry sand, but still, for me is the cleanest, most cost effective way to go. I hope this helps. I met a lady once who used sand in her horse patures on the heavy traffic areas to keep them from getting muddied. Looked great, even in the Oregon Willamette Valley winter, but she must have had to put in a ton of it. LOL.

 

[Amiga]

Just a thought to share . . .

To prevent mud pumping up (as quickly), where I worked we used to lay down something we called geotech fabric. It is used by highway departments. It is not the same thing as silt fence (no matter what the clerk may say).

We would scrape off the soft material on the surface - the organic matter - get a nice hard packed mineral surface with about a 2 percent slope for drainage, lay the fabric, and then carefully pin or weight the edges and again carefully load a mixture of sizes of stone from 2 or 3 inch diameter down to sand size) onto the fabric. It would drain but it was firm enough to scrape off manure (we used these on dairy farms quite a bit) and the mud would not pump up through it because of the fabric.

 

[duckmanor]

I thank you for your great advice learning so much from this forum even a year later

I will let you know what we end up with and how it works.