We use the DLM for our chickens but we use straw for our ducks. No rational reason except that it sounded sane at the time. We have 2 ducks and clear it out once every week and replace it with new straw. Should we be doing it more often? What do you think about the DLM for ducks?
We use straw for our 6 ducks and do a quasi-Deep Litter Method. We lay stray, then add a new straw layer every 1 to 2 weeks or so, then clean out the coop every 6 to 8 weeks, depending on how things look. We stopped providing feed and water at night, which proved to be very helpful at keeping the coop clean.
We recently ditched out DLM with straw. Was too funky and smelly. We moved to horse pellets. Smells great in there even after a few weeks and it's not funky and there isn't a layer of nasty under there. We have 14 ducks.
The horse bedding i use is wood pellets, it's costs me an extra 1$ a bag over shavings, everyday i remove any large mess and stir the bedding, it slowly composts down into this almost powder(minimal dust) i do mix mine with a bit of shavings but the bulk of the bedding is the pellets. Totally biodegradable and keeps odours down. I keep 17 ducks here and use it with my horses too.
I also switched to pine pellets and I heartily recommend it! I add a bit of sweet PDZ, too. I have two small waterers in my duck house and it still stays much drier than it did when I used pine shavings.
