Wet bedding

[DuckCommander]

The front view of the coop

 

[laughingdog]

Pea gravel that you could stand and walk on barefoot, a foot to fot and a half deep. use milk jugs with holes just big enough for heads to fit in and reach bottom. use a tablespoon of apple cider vinager per gallon of water, as it seems to help all around. on top of gravel i have railroad ties logs and stumps, and i have make shift grates raised, that allow me to not have to clean hardly at all unless gets too dry and piles up. my chickens love so much that i have to shoo them out of duck pen when left open, and tjats were they prefer to lay their eggs now.

 

[laughingdog]

Sand holds water and sticks to everything too good when gets soaked, so you and your birds would not like unless you set up excellent drainage under sand, or maybe very deep sand on gravel ect.

 

[Pasha838]

My birds are together in the winter too (Rusia). In the picture are not everybody - now there are 7 chickens too (when i did this photo chickens was in another room, now they live in this room, width 11 ducks, 3 young turkey and 3 young gooses). I have two place where are the water - one place is very old and scary bath (there i change the water every 3-4 days, this place are fod swimming), and one little (now i changed it, it was too little, now 30 liter) there are the water for drinking. This water i change one or two times in every day. But the water and there and there every time are dirty...

 

[DuckCommander]

Sand holds water and sticks to everything too good when gets soaked, so you and your birds would not like unless you set up excellent drainage under sand, or maybe very deep sand on gravel ect.

Good to know! i won't try!

 

[Coop de Cuse]

The front view of the coop

Nice coop and run

For a lot of water that spills, something larger, like pea gravel would work. All the other bedding, though good at soaking up small amounts of water, will not be able to dissipate the amount you need to get rid of. Perhaps a "raised bed" (like in a garden) filled with pea gravel and the tub inside, so they can splash all they want without getting the hay/bedding wet.

 

[tdgill]

Ducks seem to make lots of moisture even without spilling water. The more they are inside with water and food the more they will be poo-ing.even only being enclosed over nite without food and water they will make a decent mess that should require a fresh light layer of bedding. How many ducks do you have? Keep a nose for ammonia odor...it's hard on your chickens respiratory. And keep good healthy ventilation going.damp air and cold are a bad mix

 

[tdgill]

What a nice run you have! With some shelter from wind and a covered area from rain I would think the ducks would prefer to spend some time outside anyway.aren't they well insulated from cold naturally?

 

[RugenerGooser]

What kind of waterer are you using? also I suggest using pine shaving, much more absorbent and if you can don't put waterer inside the coop. Amiga showed a pic of her set up and I am thinking it was a plastic bin that had one end cut down, actually a plastic dog crate would work the same way the bottom half, I believe she used pelleted horse bedding and put the water can't remember what kind of container she use though but if you can keep the waterer inside something like this where they have to walk inside of something to drink that would keep the water off the main bedding. I use heated bucket and keep all of them outside the chickens ducks and geese use them. I'm not set up at all to have water inside my coops.

I would like to see Amiga's setup. Smarrrrrt...verrry Smart!

 

[RugenerGooser]

Pea gravel that you could stand and walk on barefoot, a foot to fot and a half deep. use milk jugs with holes just big enough for heads to fit in and reach bottom. use a tablespoon of apple cider vinager per gallon of water, as it seems to help all around. on top of gravel i have railroad ties logs and stumps, and i have make shift grates raised, that allow me to not have to clean hardly at all unless gets too dry and piles up. my chickens love so much that i have to shoo them out of duck pen when left open, and tjats were they prefer to lay their eggs now.

Explain the apple cider vinegar to me, please. I find that interesting.

Thanks!
January(the Gooser)