So Much Poo!! Am I doing something wrong? Also help me decide on flooring PLZ

[HarlessFarm]

Ok so I have 3 Pekin Ducks and all of this is fairly new to me and my husband we just read up and try to learn as we go. their coop and pen are now liveable and they have all 3 gotten big enough to go outside.
So I have 3 Pekin Ducks 2 are almost 1 month younger than the other one they all just got big enough to really go outside more permanently.

We Still have alot of work to do and lots of finishing touches to be added (if the rain ever stops) but it is liveable now at least and I was very happy to get my smelly little babies out of my spare bathroom!

I know that Ducks can't control their bowels and I was expecting it to be a little messy and smelly but over the past 3-4 weeks they have pooped their little brains out. I have no idea how they could possibly poop that much. I was free feeding them then after reading some suggestions online it said to only feed them on scheduled times so i am feeding them 3 times a day and of course they have access to water all day long in multiple areas. It seems like they eat once and Poop 20 to 30 times, they dont eat at all and poop a bunch too and it is very runny like diahrea. I am really starting to feel like I am doing something wrong! I am still giving them the starter feed they reccomended at Tractor Supply it says on the back of the back it can be used up to 10 wks. Am I using the wrong kind of food? Am i feeding too much? Too Little? Should i be concerned? They seem happy and healthy.

Well with all this poo problem comes to the problem of keeping everything clean without loosing my sanity.

This is their coop & run, so far what we have been doing is they are allowed to free range when we are home but they mostly just wanna go back into their pen and then at night we put them up in the coop(which we open up to allow access during the day. From dark till about 8am or so in the morning the floor of their coop is covered in poop. ( we have their water on a seperate area inside the coop with a heavy hardwire floor under it so all the food and water mess goes right through to the ground? So far we have been using some pine bark shavings we still had left and even though they have only been outside a week I really feel like they poo so much It needs to be changed daily but I try to make it every other day. The floor in the coop is painted wood right now. Some how even with the bedding they seem to be still getting the poop all over the actual floor.

I would love any suggestions to making it easier on me to keep thier coop clean!

I have wondered about sealing it somehow so i could hose it out? Or perhaps lining the floor with some sort of plastic to help protect the wood better?

I also read about whitewashing for chicken coops to help with parasites and such is that something you can do with duck coops too?



The same issues I have in the pen there are piles of poop in certain areas, which of course draws in more bugs and such and causes a stink literally i have a couple of times taken the hose and wet down the grass to kinda rinse away some of the mess but this is only helping them make a big mud pit.

This is a permanent fixture, we never realized alot of ppl make theirs mobile for parasite reasons. I have seen many posts about Deep Litter Method (which i really havent found out what they are using for "litter" and I have read how other people use straw or bedding and just rake it and change it every so often. I have also heard something out a sand pit with rock underneath? Which one is going to be easier on my wallet to maintain?

Thank You So much for any help you can give me. Lord knows i need all i can get!

 

[Amiga]

Well, you are being conscientious, and that's great! Nice setup! The ramp looks more chicken coop style - those can be a challenge to ducks, but the angle is probably okay - the ducks are handling it well, apparently. I just in my more worrywort mode feel like if a duck fell off that ramp, you'd have a serious leg injury.

I am a gardener, so my system involves getting the fertilizer from the shelter and run to the compost pile or mulched around trees and bushes.

I don't know how old your ducks are, but they are just about the age where it is okay to withdraw the 24/7 food.

I use about three to four inches of pine shavings in the duck night pen. I have ten ducks in a 100 sf area. I have another three in a 32 sf area. So that's about ten square feet per duck. But my ducks are small - about 4 pounds each, runners and buffs.

Anyway, each morning I let them out into a pen near the night shelter to noodle around while I do room service. That generally takes me 15 to 20 minutes. I spot pick poops, which I put into a bucket to take to the garden or compost. I fluff the bedding with a cultivator, top up or replace sawdust pellets in the watering station, collect eggs, change the water in the water pots, and we are done. Once a week or so I need to add some shavings, and every week or two depending on weather I need to replace the shavings. If I get a whiff of ammonia, the shavings go.

I have found that I can replace half at a time and that reduces the amount of time it takes. A couple of times a week I replace the sawdust in the watering station.

For their original shelter, I covered the floor and several inches up the side of the duck house with vinyl flooring sheets. It keeps the wood dry. It can be mopped out, but I never had to do more than sweep, because I kept a foot and a half of shavings in there and after spot pick up, fluffed the shavings thoroughly. Shavings lasted six months or more before I would clean out the whole thing, and it was never nasty.

How deep are the shavings you use? If they get really wet, it can be a health problem, as you know. I have found that having enough shavings to handle the moisture from the poop makes a difference.

Regarding food, I started switching my runners from starter crumble to grower pellets at two weeks of age. I also put dry rolled oats - not instant - into their food. It provides some fiber.

Try giving them some poultry vitamins with electrolytes and probiotics for their tummies.

 

[TLWR]

The floor to my duck house is trek decking boards.
I hose it out daily.
They have a bin with pine straw to lay eggs in. So 1/3 of the house is taken up by bins of pine straw. The rest is open for pooping (so is the box with pine straw).
I open in the am, get the ducks out, open the roof and hose out the house. Then add some fresh pine straw on top of any poop in the bins. One bin is normally clean, the other not so much.

Mine free range all day when not locked in their house, so I don't have a pen to worry about. Just the poop house lol

 

[smedly9921]

I got rid of my pekings cause of how dirty they are. They are poop factories. That is all they do. You are not doing anything wrong that's just how they are.

 

[HarlessFarm]

Well, you are being conscientious, and that's great! Nice setup! The ramp looks more chicken coop style - those can be a challenge to ducks, but the angle is probably okay - the ducks are handling it well, apparently. I just in my more worrywort mode feel like if a duck fell off that ramp, you'd have a serious leg injury.

I don't know how old your ducks are, but they are just about the age where it is okay to withdraw the 24/7 food.

For their original shelter, I covered the floor and several inches up the side of the duck house with vinyl flooring sheets. It keeps the wood dry. It can be mopped out, but I never had to do more than sweep, because I kept a foot and a half of shavings in there and after spot pick up, fluffed the shavings thoroughly. Shavings lasted six months or more before I would clean out the whole thing, and it was never nasty.

How deep are the shavings you use? If they get really wet, it can be a health problem, as you know. I have found that having enough shavings to handle the moisture from the poop makes a difference.

Thank you for the information.

I just am worried I am not feeding them enough they always act starved to death! So after i finish up this half of the bag of food i have I will look into switching and adding supplements to see if that helps.

Yes the ramp needs work my husband designed everything him self and really didnt think that out to well. It was a last minute decision to build the coop so high off the ground (mainly as extra protection from critters)( here in northeast TN we have everything big and smal. Well until he got the coop built he didnt realize the problem with the ramp being so high at such a high angle, he has had to adjust it twice which is what the cinder block is temporarily for.

As of now we help them walk up and down Just to make sure no one falls but they are doing a good job once he added more dividers for better traction. You cant see it in the picture but at the top area where it is really steep there is a wire tunnel. He has talked about putting a small wall on each side of the ramp (think escalator) to act as a barrier so hopefully no one falls. If you have a better suggestion though that would be great.

Thankfully the way my husband designed their coop we dont have to worry about the water or food mess it all falls through the floor so all we have to worry about is the poo mess.

That is what I was thinking something vinyl would be great. I definately am not using anywhere near that much shavings so maybe that is the problem, I need to make it deeper so everything settles on the top and not goes all the way through to the floor.

 

[HarlessFarm]

I got rid of my pekings cause of how dirty they are. They are poop factories. That is all they do. You are not doing anything wrong that's just how they are.

Aww I love my messy babies, I can live with all the poop now that they arent in my house anymore but there is times i feel like that is all they do , just needing some tips on how to manage it a little better.

The floor to my duck house is trek decking boards.
I hose it out daily.
They have a bin with pine straw to lay eggs in. So 1/3 of the house is taken up by bins of pine straw. The rest is open for pooping (so is the box with pine straw).
I open in the am, get the ducks out, open the roof and hose out the house. Then add some fresh pine straw on top of any poop in the bins. One bin is normally clean, the other not so much.

Mine free range all day when not locked in their house, so I don't have a pen to worry about. Just the poop house lol

sweeping and Hosing it out is what I have been doing every other day but I know that eventually this is gonna take a toll on the wood. I will have to take a picture of the inside today, I hosed it out this morning so hopefully it shouldnt be too bad just been making sure it is good and dry before i put any bedding back in.