What do you recommend for...

[lomine]

At my old house I had pea gravel around an in-ground stock tank inside the duck run. At first I really liked it because it was easy to clean; just spray the poop off with a hose a couple times a week. Then the first freeze hit. The pea gravel area turned into a solid block of frozen poop and rocks. I had to put down straw just to keep it from getting really gross. That made it hard to clean out because it was hard to separate the straw from the gravel. I ended up with a lot of pea gravel in my compost pile. I will never do pea gravel with ducks again.

I haven't done river rock or sand so can't speak to those.

 

[onaharley]

So I had sand down and like you lomine, then winter came.... I ended up putting about 4-6 inches of pine shaving down then topped it off with a couple on inches on straw. The ducks packed down the pine shavings and the straw got replace every day or so. Worked great. Come spring it was a challenge getting all the pines out of the sand though, but it all comes out in the wash right.

 

[onaharley]

So I had sand down and like you lomine, then winter came.... I ended up putting about 4-6 inches of pine shaving down then topped it off with a couple on inches on straw. The ducks packed down the pine shavings and the straw got replace every day or so. Worked great. Come spring it was a challenge getting all the pines out of the sand though, but it all comes out in the wash right.

Mind you.....I did not have a water source in my pen, so that kinda helped my process.