what does everyone use for duckling bedding?

[crazybarnlady]

ok- I have five runner ducklings (2 weeks old) and they are piglets! Towels need to be changed far too often, they eat newspaper so I don't even want to TRY shavings... what do you all use?? It's a good thing they are so darn cute

 

[Teresaann24]

I started out with paper towels what a waste. I was cleaning them so much!

I changed to pine shavings at about 2 weeks old. They at first seem like they are eating the shavings but their not they are checking them out kinda like nibble them with their bills. So don't worry they are doing fine on the pine shavings I still have to change them everyday they are such stinkers!

 

[Olive Hill]

The best duckling bedding I have ever found I have to give credit to my eight year old daughter for discovering. We line our duckling brooder with a puppy training pad (available just about anywhere -- they're made to put on the floor by your door to help train your puppy to go potty there) and then put a thin layer of pine shavings on top. Works like a charm! The pad is absorbent so the water mess they make gets soaked up without saturating the shavings so quickly and the pine shavings helps keep the poop and smell under control.

ETA: The training pads are also water proof backed, so the floor of the brooder stays perfectly dry and clean. And our pine shavings costs have been cut tremendously since going this route as well.

 

[duckyfromoz]

I used to use plain newspaper until about 8 months ago when I got my incubator. I have my ducklings on small towels for three days- then pine shavings untill they go outside. Mine do tend to run their bils through it- much like the adults do in the grass outside. They dont actually eat it though. I always put extra newspaper under the area where the water container is too.

 

[T Hi]

FYI- Costco here in WA carry the puppy pads at a reasonable price! Maybe check online!? Here they are $16.99 for 100 pads! They have some sort of neutralizer in them for animal urine so it will probably help!

 

[crazybarnlady]

thanks everyone! great ideas- i think i may actually have some puppy pads around here somewhere.
and thanks for assuring me about the shavings- they are my favorite but i was worried about them eating too many

 

[FrenchHen]

I did half puppy pad and half wire.
IT was easier to clean until we chucked them into the brooder tractor.

 

[tia]

I used towels, and then switched to pine shavings when I couldn't stand washing them anymore. I was worried they were eating the shavings at first, but must now have been.

 

[Chicken Crazy12]

I believe the puppy pads with shavings on top are the best you can do for them. I've used this for a couple of years with ducklings.

 

[Amiga]

I had my eleven runners on towels, tried shavings a couple of times (at 2 and 3 weeks), and watched the smaller shavings disappear down their little gullets and turn up in their poop. I went back to towels.

Then I tried pine shavings again (third time, at about four and a half weeks). They seemed to be eating far fewer, mostly noodling around with them, so I was relieved. Then I realized that my DH and I are quite allergic to pine shavings. We switched to hardwood shavings. The dust settled all over the room the brooder is in, and the ducklings and I had more sniffles and coughs. Back to towels.

In a few weeks we will be moving outdoors, so I can change and add shavings and let the dust settle in the duckhouse, which is well ventilated, while the ducks are in the duckyard. That should work out. And I may find a way to make the pine shavings work, since they won't be inside our house. The fact that they are SO aromatic does bother me some, as do the many recommendations against using pine shavings for small animals, whose faces are so close to the aromatic oils (as opposed to goats and horses).

I had considered the puppy pads, and may go with them in spite of the fact that they become part of the landfill problem. For right now, I shake the poops into the compost and am using the pre-wash rinse water from the towels to fertilize the garden. The used shavings are also used for gardens and compost.

While I most certainly appreciate the convenience of the puppy pads, and I am fine with others' decisions to use them (it is a great temptation for me right now) I have been doing pretty well reducing our trash output, and those would mean losing the fertilizer and increasing trash.

The next great invention will be compostable duckling pads. Who on BYC will take up this opportunity?