What a disgusting mess! 🤣

[ndcallahan]

Okay,

Our ducks have been in their new home for 9 Days. We cleaned it out for the first time. ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING

• 8ft x 6 foot house
• 20 ducks

1. How often do you clean?
2. Do you have their water inside or outside?

It was like a biohazard

 

[HeatherKellyB]

Okay,

Our ducks have been in their new home for 9 Days. We cleaned it out for the first time. ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING

• 8ft x 6 foot house
• 20 ducks

1. How often do you clean?
2. Do you have their water inside or outside?

It was like a biohazard

I think most people keep the water/food outside. My Ducks have to hang out in the duck house for a little while in the morning so I have food and water available for them in their duck house. This makes for a MUCH bigger mess, by far. I clean as needed. I use pine shavings and remove the larger clumps daily, which helps the shavings last longer in my personal opinion. I don't have that many ducks housed together unfortunately. I'll tag a few others.
@shawluvsbirds has 20 ducks but she has a lot of Call Ducks. Smaller duck but I can't tell a difference in the mess between them and large fowl ducks.
@WVduckchick @BirdsBeesTrees @Overo Mare @MGG

 

[ndcallahan]

Yeah I think that's been the biggest eye opener is not having water inside. Unfortunately we had a waterer that just sat in the floor and they just made a mess. 5 gallons, we filled up 3 or 4 times a day. This new one sits up off the floor AND we put a hot water heater bin thing under it. Hoping that helps. It was terrible. All soaked and everything so hopefully this helps. We're going to get a temporary nrun for them until we can get a big one built and hopefully that'll help too.

 

[DuneDucks]

Yeah, I took the water out after a few days. Makes a giant mess, and as long as they aren't actively feeding, they don't need it inside at night. Even without the water 20 ducks in 48 square feet of space are going to create quite the mess though. Like @HeatherKellyB said, scooping up the large clumps will go a long way. You'll do yourself (and your ducks!) a huge favor doing that a little every day or two.

We're going to get a temporary run for them until we can get a big one built and hopefully that'll help too.

You're right. Depending on their current routine giving them more space/time outside could make a considerable difference. How old are your ducks?

 

[Miss Lydia]

Plus keeping food and water inside and bedding etc getting wet brings mold which can cause aspergillosis [not something any of us want for our ducks]
Just best to keep food and water out of the coop. We built shelters for our feed containers to sit under so when it rains or snows the feed stays dry.

 

[Isadora]

Oh, yuck! That sounds horrendous.
I keep all food and water out of the coop. They have access to the outdoors no matter what the weather. I use rough cut wood chips in my coop and straw in the corners for nesting. I really don't need to change it that often, maybe a few times a month?

 

[Painted Calls]

That size house for that many ducks is too small. My house is 5x8 and I won't put more than 10 Calls in it. However, that's likely not the biggest reason for the mess. Where there is water, they will play. I keep feed in the house and water in the run. This helps in two ways. It keeps the water mess outside when they dunk their heads, and it keeps them from going back and forth to the food with a dripping bill and making it sloppy. By having to walk from the house to the pen for water between bites, it gives their bill time to drip outside instead of all over the feed and floor of the house. Not to mention no mess while they're panning for gold with their bills in the water.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

No food or water inside houses here. You would have to clean it all out every single day. No one has time for that.
Also I agree that's too many birds for that size house without a run. May be ok for sleeping quarters only.. but not to be in there full time. I can't even imagine the stench.

 

[WVduckchick]

You can also consider elevating the water over some type of container to catch some of the mess, that is easier to clean out regularly. I used a rabbit poop pan, it’s like 24”x24” but only a few inches deep, with hardware cloth over the top. But it would have to be rinsed at least daily. And it still got nasty, with just a few big ducks.

Keeping water away from everything else is the key. They will noodle and moonscape anything near any amount of water.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

moonscape

I luv this word!