Show me your duckling brooder solutions!

[pamelajean]

Ducklings sure are messy creatures! I saw a thread a few months back with some great solutions to water messes in the brooder. I even bought some containers to copy these solutions. Now I cannot find the thread.
Please post your ideas for keeping the brooder as clean (and dry) as possible.
Currently I am using a cut out milk carton for water with pine shavings as bedding in large tote.

Also - I bought a brooder plate but the babies wouldn't go under it so I dug out the heat lamp again. Anyone else have this problem with ducklings not using a brooder plate?

 

[chickens really]

These simple water containers...

 

[chickens really]

About heat plates..Ducklings do not require as much heat as Chicks.. a partially heated Brooder is all they need...

 

[blayt90]

I use a MHP (mother hen pad) in mine they can get under it or on it to warm up. I also put the food and water in th outside portion of mine with the material that goes in drawers for nonskid to cover the wire floor for them to walk on.
This is my brooder. Second picture is my MHP.

 

[PirateGirl]

My brooder is a plastic tote. I don't think a wire cage could adequately contain the mess, the room would become the mess.

I have a gallon milk jug with just one cutout for water. This has worked relatively well, until recently. It seems now that they are bigger they are splashing more even though they can't get in the water to play/swim.

I have another plastic juice bottle that I've also cut one hole in that I'm using for food. So far they have not knocked it over and spilled, nor can they get in it and poop in it or play in it.

I have pine shavings and some straw for bedding. I like how absorbent the pine is, however mine is quite fine and dusty. I'm going to try just straw next time I clean the brooder and see if it's better or worse (I have both on hand already).

I have a lamp. I like that by having the lamp it frees up floor space in the brooder now that they are growing. It's hooked on the telescoping arm of a clothes steamer, it's easy to raise up and down as needed.

I have an old window screen across the top. This is nothing particularly secure, but a double fail safe should the lamp fall or break it would not end up actually in the brooder. Should one of my cats somehow get in the room, it would be harder for them to get in. Should the ducklings find a way, it would be harder for them to escape.

It's still a stinky mess. I change out 100% of the bedding about every 48 hours.

 

[littlecollier]

We have a brooder plate and ours love it. Like others have said, they don’t require quite as much heat as chicks so mine happily run in and out and really only stay under the plate when they’re napping or at nighttime. I usually find them snuggled up underneath (like the picture above) when I come to wake them up in the morning.

 

[blayt90]

The only other thing I could think of is to put your water container in a sheet pan on a cooling rack.

 

[littlecollier]

For water we had a waterer in a loaf pan that was filled with little pebbles (big enough that they couldn’t try to eat them) which helped the water fall through so that the top layer stayed dry. I’ll take a photo when I get home.

The older one (almost three weeks) has out grown that watered and I’ve added the plastic food container with holes in the lid that are pictured in a previous reply, which is working well.

 

[chickens really]

Ducks need water containers deep enough to Dunk heads to clear nares and washes their eyes too..

 

[calliope8]

This is my first time brooding ducks so I did A LOT of research & really liked this family's method:

However, I didn't want to buy heat lamps & something to hang them on so went with a heating pad. I am keeping the brooder in a spare room as it was the only place to keep a regular eye on the ducklings and keep them secure from predators until they are bigger. I actually shut off the AC vent to that room and put a heating pad in instead of a heat lamp. You can set it up like a brooder plate on one of those shelf dividers & much cheaper. I covered it with puppy pee pads I already had. They actually only used the heating pad for the first couple of days then switched to just hanging out on the straw so plenty warm enough for them (summertime in GA!)
I do not have multiple boxes like in the video but one giant box in anticipation of receiving 10 ducklings. Sadly 5 did not make it in shipping so it is a lot of space for the 5 remaining to run around in. Lol! But I do find the paint tray & mesh method to be pretty effective. I ended up switching out the water tray pictured here for a regular trough type one (same size) and this set up did not allow the jar to hold water & the tray didn't hold much. Duh - physics. LOL!