New to ducks here (don't have any yet but doing my research before hand), I'm wondering what kind of bedding you're using for your little cuties in your pictures?
Is it easy to maintain? i.e cleaning it out so its not a big mess all the time...
Thanks
All my hatches (chicks, turkeys, ducks, or geese) start out in clear plastic tub brooders with the tops cut out and hardware cloth zip tied on top. I always use the kind that lock closed on the sides so there are no escapees. The cats would be lethal.
I start out with fine shavings covered with paper towels so they don't eat the shavings. After 5 days or so they are really sure what feed is and I can get rid of the paper towels and just leave the shavings. You could also use flake style shavings. I just happened to have the fine type handy and used it.
Ducklings make a huge wet mess.
I have a small dustpan that I use to scoop out wet shavings after rolling up what mess I can in the paper towels. Then I replace the shavings and put down more paper towels. It's okay for the first week or so, but baby poultry grows so fast the tub gets crowded in a hurry.
In prior years I had a 6' x 6' x 6' wood and wire brooder in an extra bedroom with a tarp underneath and bedded with shavings. It worked really well, but was big and clunky and a real dust collector. I switched to a wire puppy pen with plastic chicken wire zip tied on and it was easy to collapse and take outside to be hosed off when brooding was done. I got two rubber stock feeding pans, one larger than the other, and put water in the small one which was inside the larger one. That helped to catch a lot of the water mess and it was easier to scoop up the wet shavings around it.
That wire pen was good for taking them outside with supervision to start getting used sun and fresh air prior to transitioning to the outdoor baby house. The bathtub makes a good brooder as well if you do not have other pets that are way too interested in the babies. When I had two geriatric cats that could care less it worked well. (Now I have a 9 month old kitten and he is just wild to get at them so they have to be very secure.) I took the ducklings out and put them in a plastic tub while I scooped out the nasty shavings and rinsed down the tub and put in fresh bedding.
They are messy little critters that scream for more water when they have emptied their water dish. So worth it if you can tolerate a little more work and keep the dry shavings coming. Just keep a dustpan, a bucket and a bag of shavings handy and it is not bad at all.
