Duck pen

[Chase2008]

Curious if anyone with ducks has good ideas for the ground inside the pen so that it doesn't become a muddy sticky mess

I realize I will have some of a mess with ducks but trying to keep it to a minimum. Straw - bad idea. Leave it as dirt - bad idea. Tried wood shavings thinking it would kind of compost. Not bad.

Open to ideas. Thanks

[j_h_nimrod]

Not sure how your pen is set up, but keeping water isolated to one area is a start. If it is out in the rain then there is not much I have found, ducks are great at tearing up a wet area.

[Chase2008]

Pen is exposed. Have a house for night with a ramp to the pen which is a wired enclosure. Then they free range when possible.

[bknilvr00]

What I can tell you is that if there is grass, it will get turned into mud. There's not a whole lot you can do about it. Had ducks for a couple years, and they are little excavators, and effective ones at that.

[Birdguy]

Massive square footage is about all you can do. They eat and stomp everything, add water and the excessive amounts of poop they put out and it is a tough challenge. We keep three ducks in a 16'x30' foot pen and has zero grass, just a couple trees left.

[Special T]

Duck tractor!

[Buckewe]

Duck tractor!

Not a bad idea. They will tear up grass for sure.

[Chase2008]

No tractor for me. Won't let them tear up the whole yard. Hoping to find some material on the ground that will drain

[jennabug]

Maybe sand or pea gravel?

[j_h_nimrod]

For my first pen I put sand over d1 grave with porous weed cloth betweenl. It just ended up turning into poop cemented sand. Drained ok for a few months but that was it. I actually built it up above ground level inside the pen about 4", not great but better than a Jud pit. If you cleaned the sand every few months it would work ok.

[singleshot12]

Put pen up on slight slope,lay out about 4 inches of 1 inch minus drain rock. Hose off every day or so,works great

Perforated rubber stall mats work also,just hose manure away each day

[jennabug]

For my first pen I put sand over d1 grave with porous weed cloth betweenl. It just ended up turning into poop cemented sand. Drained ok for a few months but that was it. I actually built it up above ground level inside the pen about 4", not great but better than a Jud pit. If you cleaned the sand every few months it would work ok.

I would suspect that the weed cloth was a big part of the problem on that. If you're doing sand, the poop should be scooped. Hosing it should work for pea gravel as long as the sediment has a path into the ground.