Need help with duck filtration

[chasing ducks]

Ok, my ducks have a house they're locked into at night with a large wire box attached to the front so that they can sleep outside if they wish and still be safe. The problem is because we have a variety of ages we have to keep water available all the time, so we put a 5 gallon waterer in the box as well. This makes for one ucky box floor. I'd like to do something for a filtration system, simple, but effective. my husband has an idea of gravel then sand over it, but I would think that the sand would just pack in the gravel and get ucky as well. What do you guys do? Any ideas?

 

[columbiacritter]

Sorry but there is no way to keep water clean around ducks. They actively muck up water within minutes of finding it. Nothing short of a 100g a minute pond filter would keep up with them.

At night my ducks get a rubber horse bowl with about 2 inches of water in it, we float a kids plastic ball in it to keep them from getting in the bowl. The water is shallow enough they generally don't splash too much out, but it's there to drink if they need it. Every mornig nit's mostly gone and theres a gross sludge at the bototm.

Check out the thread, "The Gross Truth About Ducks"

 

[Amiga]

chasing ducks,

I like to give things a try, myself, so if you want to try filtering, do a net search on sand filters. People have used five gallon buckets with sand, gravel and charcoal to clean water. Can't hurt to try. I think you might need to have a settling bucket (similar to a septic tank setup) and then pass the water that is left after the solids settle out into the sand filter bucket. It is on my list of things to try, but I have not gotten to that point yet.

I did, however, get a polycarbonate corrugated roof on top of the ducks' night pen today.

 

[chasing ducks]

I'm not worried about their waterer, I know they're going to mess that up, lol. I am talking about the wire bottom of the box on the front of their house, wondering if maybe sand or something will help drain the water off so their not sitting in mucky puddles at night.