My garden 😞

[Duckfarmerpa1]

Last year when I got my ducklings I used these giant sheets of paper that I got for free from our local paper mill, with card board underneath, then hay on top. Everyone on BYC said to use the puppy pads...so, I was thinking of trying it? But I will say, my duckies didn’t really love nibbling on the hay and playing with it. @Beekissed ...wait one second..you’ve had ducks for a year..you just keep throwing in hay..,you never see poop, and it doesn’t smell??? What?!?,?? I was mucking, and mucking, and mucking. I was in over my eyes with poop. I realize, I had 43 ducks...but even when I weaned it down to reasonable numbers, I still had to muck a lot! I’m thinking of getting 4...just 4. The added work is my biggest hesitation. Where are you keeping them?

 

[Beekissed]

Last year when I got my ducklings I used these giant sheets of paper that I got for free from our local paper mill, with card board underneath, then hay on top. Everyone on BYC said to use the puppy pads...so, I was thinking of trying it? But I will say, my duckies didn’t really love nibbling on the hay and playing with it. @Beekissed ...wait one second..you’ve had ducks for a year..you just keep throwing in hay..,you never see poop, and it doesn’t smell??? What?!?,?? I was mucking, and mucking, and mucking. I was in over my eyes with poop. I realize, I had 43 ducks...but even when I weaned it down to reasonable numbers, I still had to muck a lot! I’m thinking of getting 4...just 4. The added work is my biggest hesitation. Where are you keeping them?

Yeah....gotta think of scale...I only had 5 ducks, now only 3. Also, my ducks free range most of their time and any time they've been confined it was in the garden, which is also a large space filled with hay. So even in the garden, in the brooder, even, they've had so much space and litter that I never got to see a poop. Now, if I had as many as you have, I'd see plenty of poop.

Got to think of quality of quantity when it comes to livestock....you'll have healthier animals if they aren't overstocked on static runs and paddocks. When you see too much poop mounting up, that's when you know you have too little space or too many animals~or both. Then the meds come out and it never seems to end.

 

[Duckfarmerpa1]

Yeah....gotta think of scale...I only had 5 ducks, now only 3. Also, my ducks free range most of their time and any time they've been confined it was in the garden, which is also a large space filled with hay. So even in the garden, in the brooder, even, they've had so much space and litter that I never got to see a poop. Now, if I had as many as you have, I'd see plenty of poop.

Got to think of quality of quantity when it comes to livestock....you'll have healthier animals if they aren't overstocked on static runs and paddocks. When you see too much poop mounting up, that's when you know you have too little space or too many animals~or both. Then the meds come out and it never seems to end.

I had a big space, according to how much square footage you need per duck...half of a semi trailer. But, I originally was mucking daily...too much work. A friend told me to layer bedding thicker, and do it weekly. That helped, but...you’re right...just too many ducks.

 

[Beekissed]

I had a big space, according to how much square footage you need per duck...half of a semi trailer. But, I originally was mucking daily...too much work. A friend told me to layer bedding thicker, and do it weekly. That helped, but...you’re right...just too many ducks.View attachment 70937View attachment 70938View attachment 70939View attachment 70940View attachment 70941View attachment 70942

And no good ventilation....that factors in too. With that much moisture in an area, you've got to have some big, open ventilation to get the humidity and ammonia lifted up and out. The same sq ft that may..and often does not...work with chickens would never apply to ducks due to all the water issues.

I ignore the whole sq. ft. per bird thing, as it's highly inaccurate...whoever came up with it was just using it to justify overstocking their dwellings and runs. I've seen what it looks like when you have the "correct" footage and it's much as you see here....impossible to keep clean, lots of picking on one another(at least, in chicken flocks) and no different levels of being~hay bales, roosts or other ways of getting out of the muck.

That's where infection comes to live.

 

[Xerocles]

DUCKS! What a PITA! Just in case you're wondering why I'm talking about ducks in a thread titled "my garden", six months ago I had no plans or aspirations to have ducks. I thought people who raised ducks were a little weird ( @Duckfarmerpa1 ). But I decided to do a "Ruth Stout" type garden. No till, 12 inches deep in hay. And someone told me that the biggest drawback to this type garden is lots of bugs, slugs, and small pests (mice). And that I needed runner ducks, which were developed in Indo China especially for gardening, with voracious appetites for such vermin, light of weight and with a body style least likely to trample plants.
Thus...runner ducks.
Now, I'm not an experienced farmer/gardener. Began a year ago with 6 chickens. Day olds. A breeze. Nothing to this animal husbandry thing. Minimal mess, minimal work. And practically free eggs. Biggest headache? How to get rid of the eggs. I pickled 2 dozen yesterday. Still have 5 dozen on the counter or in the fridge. The few people I know here look the other way when they see me, cause they know I'm gonna ask if they need more eggs yet.
Anyhow, back to the ducks. Got them a week ago. I was prepared. Had all the stuff from the chicks. I thought. Chicks. So cute. So friendly. Changed the whole litter maybe 3 times before they moved outside. Every day or so, maybe a big spoonful of litter around the waterer. Ducks? Complete litter change daily! Filling the waterer 2/3 times a day...because most of it was going onto the litter. Finally took the advice of folks here about a milk jug with holes. Better, but STILL making a huge mess! And they (ducks) are terrified! Chicks? So cute. So tame. Pick them up, a few peeps, settled down and would even take naps on my lap. Ducks? Freak out whenever I walk into the room. Struggling to climb the walls of the brooder. Fighting like heck when I try to pick them up. NEVER settling down. Frantic to get away. And remember, this is only one week in. I shudder when I think of what might be in store for me in the coming weeks.
Oh. The garden (the real purpose of this thread). The tub is ready (ducks...bah). The duck house is finished. The hay seems to be doing its job. No weeds, although a copious amount AROUND the garden. Planted the blackberry bush. The blueberry bush. Got Sugar Snap peas planted, but they haven't sprouted. Lettuce, ditto. Tomatoes and sweet peppers surviving in the tray. Plenty of other seeds ready to start, but don't know weather patterns yet, so I'll plant late rather than early.
Hopefully start on posts for deer fencing tomorrow.
Oh, my initial opinion still stands. Although I am one now, DUCK PEOPLE ARE WEIRD!

 

[Duckfarmerpa1]

And no good ventilation....that factors in too. With that much moisture in an area, you've got to have some big, open ventilation to get the humidity and ammonia lifted up and out. The same sq ft that may..and often does not...work with chickens would never apply to ducks due to all the water issues.

I ignore the whole sq. ft. per bird thing, as it's highly inaccurate...whoever came up with it was just using it to justify overstocking their dwellings and runs. I've seen what it looks like when you have the "correct" footage and it's much as you see here....impossible to keep clean, lots of picking on one another(at least, in chicken flocks) and no different levels of being~hay bales, roosts or other ways of getting out of the muck.

That's where infection comes to live.

There another window on the other side that you can’t see in the picture. We did ok with the ventilation, but, it was hard in the winter with so many drakes, and the mess. I have an order in for 4...just 4 nice little ducks this time!

 

[Jesusfreak101]

That's a lot of ducks

 

[Beekissed]

There another window on the other side that you can’t see in the picture. We did ok with the ventilation, but, it was hard in the winter with so many drakes, and the mess. I have an order in for 4...just 4 nice little ducks this time!

You windows are up high? Need ventilation around the floor level to get good air in and allow it to flow upward and out your upper ventilation. Learned that many years ago when I first started DL.....I had one whole side of the coop in windows, but couldn't get the moisture up and out. So, I opened another hole in the opposite side....BIG window. Didn't make a bit of difference. Also had the pop door open all the time but it was located clear across the coop from most of the nightly deposits.

It wasn't until I opened up a small square at the bottom, under the roosts, to connect two coops, one of which was designated a broody coop and the whole side of that coop was open air. That one foot square hole created a different flow of air in the coop and all my moisture/humidity issues went away....rooster stopped having frost bite, the bedding wasn't stinking and wet anymore and the coop seemed much warmer, even though it was still below freezing outside each night. It was a happy accident and one I've remembered to repeat.

Since then I make it a point to have a pop door under the roosts as my cross ventilation for winter time, which allows the good air in at just the right place. If I couldn't put a pop door there for some reason, I'd just open up a similar sized opening and cover with hardware wire for the same level of intake.

Now, even though my coop is even MORE open air in the winter months, with that kind of ventilation and the DL, my temps at roost level are usually 10 degrees warmer than what's going on outside. The cool air comes in and lifts the warm air from the DL up and out, right past the chickens....and my thermometer. So, even though the DL is very moist~intentionally so nowadays~the humidity is constantly flowing up and out.

It's a cool trick. Most folks are scared of having passive airflow at floor level in the winter months, afraid their birds will have a draft on them, but arranging the ventilation so the air is passive instead of just whistling through there when the wind blows, keeps that from happening. It actually keeps the flock warmer rather than colder.

 

[Duckfarmerpa1]

That's a lot of ducks

There’s 43 there...I got up to 51, but only for a week. They were call ducks and too loud for Chris so we gave them to my friend’s petting zoo. No ducks now. But, I’m getting 4 Muscovies in two weeks. The lady is giving me first pick. I’m hoping for a lavender. But, I think that’s a decscent number? Not much work, but I still get some ducks...they don’t quack, so no noise for Chris

 

[Duckfarmerpa1]

@Beekissed ...ok, i have airflow below the bottom of the nesting boxes in the chicken coop. But i need it in the duck barn too? Makes perfect sense. the bedding did get trashed rather fast and I worked too hard with my ducks. But, the ducks we get aren’t goin* in the barn....I don’t want to cut a hole in the bottom of the barn wall, because the barn is going to be used to farrow pigs, for goats, etc...and a low window would mean trouble. I foresee us just building a small coop to fit about 10 ducks. Because...we’ll, I could see me letting the new ducks set on eggs next year...sell most of the ducklings, but keep a couple. But I don’t ever want more than 8...but, I’ll make it big enough for 10. Do I need vents at the top too? Or jus5 the bottom?