Now, see, I totally disagree... my chickens are WAY more of a mess than my ducks. I have a really good system for our ducks and they barely make a mess at all. We built a pond and almost all of the poop stays there. Anything on the patios gets hosed into the border gardens and the plants love it. When they were brooding in the house we switched from shavings to bath towels and the world changed. The chickens are disgusting. First, their poop is totally gross. Duck poop is like dirt, barely smells, and washes off easily... the chicken poop is greasy and resists hosing, plus it stains and stinks to high heaven. I need to hose their coop out every day. The duck pen only needs to be hosed once a week. What's worse, the chicken poop is too strong and harms the plants in the garden. Many near the coop have died. More, when I let the chickens free range in the yard they poop all over my outdoor furniture (ducks can't), get up in my raised planting beds and destroy my plants (ducks can't), and kick dirt and mulch all over the place (ducks don't). All of my border gardens are a mess now, and they were perfectly fine when it was just the ducks. The chickens also spill their food no matter what type of container I use. The ducks keep themselves extremely clean and require little maintenance. The chickens roll around the dirt and get covered in poop so I need to bathe them almost weekly to keep them clean. I love the chickens dearly, but when I got them I never thought in a million years that they would be messier than DUCKS. They are, by a large margin.
