Poop board for ducks??

[rubberduckies]

I'm making plans for a duck house and I want it easy to clean. I've been debating on using straw, litter?, hay, etc. I just heard about poop boards for chickens. I know chickens are different but I'm thinking maybe I could adapt that idea for ducks. And I just discovered sweet PDZ. I'm thinking of using sweet PDZ in most of the house so that I can just scoop out the poop like kitty litter and having straw or hay in the boxes. Does anybody have some ideas that might help? I'd love hear how you clean your duck house. And if you have pics that would be awesome! Thanks!

 

[Amiga]

Good to think about managing these things, rubberduckies!

I use Sweet PDZ as an additive sometimes, and it seems to me to be quite dusty, so I'd have a concern about respiratory issues if that were their only bedding. I put it under the bedding for starters, then as the bedding becomes a little damp, that keeps the dust down so that when I fluff the bedding (which I need to to before too long, today. I call it room service), the PDZ dust doesn't fly.

I use pine shavings for bedding right now. When I could get good quality oatstraw, that was great. But it is difficult to find straw that's not got a bunch of mold spores in it lately. So I switched to savings and that's fine.

I do "poop scoop" big chunks daily, then fluff the rest. Then every week or two or three sometimes four, I change out the bedding (it goes onto the compost or around trees) and start over.

 

[rubberduckies]

Oh. Ok. I didn't know it was so dusty. I guess I'll try it out and use straw on top maybe. Thanks for the advice!

 

[TLWR]

I have a 3' x 6' duck house with 5 ducks in it. The floor is pieces of trex spaced a screw space apart. One corner is cut out with hardware cloth on the bottom with the water sitting over that.
Opposite end of the water is 2 bins which I add pine straw and oak leaves (when I've raked some up). I used to dump daily, but now just top dress in the morning with a little and dump the bins every 2 weeks or so and then start fresh again. I hose out the house daily, or every other day depending if it is light when I leave for work or not.
Duck chores can be done in less than 5 mins... letting them out, feeding, egg collection, and cleaning.

 

[harriedhomemaker]

I really don't think the poop board concept would work for ducks. Like Amiga said, Sweet PDZ is dusty and I can't imagine covering the entire floor of a duck house with it. I do use a little bit of Sweet PDZ in my duck house, but the best thing I ever did was to change my bedding to pine pellet horse bedding. It is so absorbent! I simply turn the bedding briefly every day and it stays fresh and clean in there for about a month. Then I rake all the bedding out and start over. I do not currently have water or food in the duck house, which also cuts back on the mess.

 

[rubberduckies]

Harriedhomemaker, do the ducks try to eat the pellets? I like the idea but I'm kind of afraid they'd eat it.

 

[harriedhomemaker]

Harriedhomemaker, do the ducks try to eat the pellets? I like the idea but I'm kind of afraid they'd eat it.

Nope, no more than any other type of bedding. They do great with it. Try it!

 

[rubberduckies]

Ok, so... I have some great plans for my duck house/run. It will be movable. Kind of like a chicken tractor. The only problem is I don't know what to do about the floor? (Not the house, but the "outside" part). Should I just leave it open or use hardware cloth?

 

[Amiga]

I would not leave it open due to predator concerns. I would use half inch metal hardware cloth with plenty of bedding on top to protect duck feet.

 

[rubberduckies]

I would like to not have bedding in the "outside" part. But I'm concerned about their feet. Decisions, decisions...