What's in your duck coop?

[AKnewbie]

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?

 

[ChicagoDucks]

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.

 

[zooweemama]

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.

 

[AKnewbie]

Can you tell me more about horse bedding? What's the maintenance on that? Is it expensive?

 

[Going Quackers]

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.

 

[harriedhomemaker]

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.