Litter trays with ducks?

[TheSnowyOwl]

Question: who has used a pull-out litter tray with ducks, and if you did, was it any good?

I'm laying out my coop design and I'm thinking of using a 12'x4' coop, since I could use 3 litter trays to make the coop easy to clean (and poop easy to put into a bucket for compost!). But, I've never done it before. Are ducks a good match for litter trays, or are they a waste and its better to use a regular wood floor?

 

[CoriM]

Question: who has used a pull-out litter tray with ducks, and if you did, was it any good?

I'm laying out my coop design and I'm thinking of using a 12'x4' coop, since I could use 3 litter trays to make the coop easy to clean (and poop easy to put into a bucket for compost!). But, I've never done it before. Are ducks a good match for litter trays, or are they a waste and its better to use a regular wood floor?

Ducks will poop any and everywhere. My ducks have a large run attached to a smaller enclosed sleeping area that is about 12'4' (if I was doing it over I'd make that area even larger!). We put down a plywood floor and covered it with linoleum tiles for easy cleaning, and then added lots of shavings on top so they don't sleep. I have two nesting boxes as well, which they don't neglect to poop in. They poop all over. The nice thing about shavings is that you can easily scoop out the poopy parts each day and put down fresh. One thing we did that was really helpful was to put thin sheets of plastic going up a couple feet on the sides of the walls, held in place by window screen clips, so easy to remove and hose off. It's quite amazing how far up the walls their poop goes.

 

[CoriM]

haha, I meant "so they don't slip" not so they don't sleep! I really like when they sleep

 

[Banana01]

duck poop is very liquidy and very strong odor. where are you at with your coop design? What part of the world do you live in (for climate). How many ducks do you plan to keep?

 

[gtaus]

Are ducks a good match for litter trays, or are they a waste and its better to use a regular wood floor?

I am not a fan of litter trays at all - not even for my chickens. IMHO, you would be much better off with a regular wood floor and a drop down panel so you can easily shovel or broom off the old bedding when cleaning.

It's great that you are asking these questions now. Take the necessary time to think about how you want to clean out your duck coop because I found that I had to clean out my duck coop much more often than my chicken coop.

Again, I would not recommend litter trays, ever, especially for ducks.