Sand or no?

[mandelyn]

If the choices are dirt or sand, I would go ahead and try the sand. If anything it will be a base for something else. Can't rake or scoop dirt as easily. Sand will stick to wet ducks but that's fine if you're working with a decent sized natural pond. Sucks for a baby pool, makes you want to clean it more often.

 

[70%cocoa]

I have a deep sand base in my ducks' night house. I would definitely recommend it

You want the floor in the indoor night area to stay dry. If you use gravel the only way to clean it thoroughly will be to hose it - not good for the night area. If you use sand you can scoop up the poop while removing minimal sand and keeping it dry. Raking it will help it dry out (it will absorb a bit of moisture from the poo). I put a layer of chopped straw (actually sugar cane mulch but not sure if you can get that in your part of the world - the main thing is to use a fine material, not something with long bits as it's hard to remove just a handful) over the top of half the floor and they sleep on that. I remove pooped-on mulch with a scoop every day and clean the lot out once a fortnight with a hay rake or stable rake.

I think that gravel would be much harder to work with in the night area. Fine for a place you can hose regularly, but not the night house.

 

[nes]

What about something like stone dust?
(It has a bunch of names... it's similar to concrete but you don't add water & it has more rocks in it)

 

[70%cocoa]

Nes, I think I know what you mean. As long as it was a pretty fine sand-like material it'd probably be fine from a drainage or cleaning perspective. But crushed rock might be too rough/sharp on their feet - that would be my only reservation with it. I use river sand, which also has tiny little round pebbles in it. The good thing about sand or river sand is that it's not sharp on the ducks' feet.