Poorly chicken

[BGD]

I am trying to find the best solution for keeping down the smells and therefore the flies in the duck area.

 

We have a pen for our 5 ducks (12 foot by 4 foot) which is filled with straw and regularly cleaned. But we also allow them out into another area of the garden, fenced off, which is about 20 feet long and six feet wide.

 

Over time, unsurprisingly, the grass has disappeared and now it is just hard earth, a pond and their poo. This attracts flies and smells.

 

I have purchased a Red Top fly catcher and try, not very successfully, to hose down the earth but the smells persist and I can see our neighbours getting increasingly agitated as the duck area abuts the end of their back garden.

 

I'm trying to research some solutions and wonder whether anyone has tried anything that actually works? Otherwise my options if I can't source something is keeping them in the pen consistently or whittling down their numbers to cut down on poo production!

 

Any suggestions appreciated.

 

Currently considering rubber mats, rubber chippings, some sort of gravel that is not going to hurt their feet, covering part of the area and laying with straw/hay/bark chippings, reducing their space to roam etc etc

Edited June 24, 2013 by Guest

[miller30]

Hi if you hose the area down that's gonna make it worse start off with treating the ground with something like stalosan-f this is great for getting rid of smells then you could woodchip it and once a week rake it over and sprinkle powder down the trouble is ducks are messy see how this goes as 6ftx4ft pen is far to small to keep them in all the time. My ducks just freerange my garden years ago when I first started out they were penned in but they were to messy so after a couple of months down came the pen and they roam the bottom of the garden which is 50ftx50ft with the chickens then at about 6 in the evening everyone gets to come up on my top area with grass which is another 50ftx50ft but this is only if it is not raining or I would have no grass left is there any way you could give them some more space but I know its hard if you cant as they do trash garden leanne

[BGD]

Hi Leanne

 

Thanks for the reply. Yes, they used to have the run of our whole garden, but with two small children, they effectively took it over and destroyed the grass leaving a sea of poo in their wake over last winter, so I recently reclaimed it and moved them to the bottom 1/4 of the garden. I made an error with my earlier post on the size of their area, it's effectively double that. They seem happy enough there, going in and behind the cage to explore and getting up on top of the plastic feed box and mooching about. When really bored they come into the main garden too - it is only 2 foot trellis with gaps that prevents them as I wanted to leave an escape exit in case of a fox attack (had one last year). That's why I also don't clip their wings. They have learnt to restrain themselves most of the time.

 

I will buy some of that powder, thanks, was looking at it this morning.

 

I think after a couple of hours reading posts on the www (in the UK and elsewhere) that I am leaning towards pea gravel in one half of their outside area, especially around their pool and a grass protector such as this http://www.boddingtons-ltd.com/cgi-bin/ca000002.pl in the other half. Grass grows through and allows some (hopefully) drainage. If that doesn't work than I might extend the pen to part of this garden, roof it and straw it too.

 

If the children were not so attached, I would ideally like to go back to three, but that doesn't seem feasible.

 

Any other tips, welcome.

[Cheeky Chooky]

Our duck run is stood on bare earth; one half has hardwood wood chip and the other half has lots and lots of pea shingle and it works really well for our 2 Muscovy girls

[whitewestie]

Hi, I was beginning to notice the smell and flies in my duck pen, particularly when the weather has been warm.

I was also worrying about the neighbours so I have started to mix Bokashi bran in with their pellets. I have been pleased because it seems to have helped quite a lot. The whole area seems much sweeter and I have hardly noticed any flies.

I also use Stalosan regularly and find that it really helps too.

 

I have 2 Pekin ducks in a 12ft x 9ft WIR that is half slabbed and half hemcore and this seems to work quite well. When I am at home they are allowed out into a larger area surrounding the run.

[BGD]

Our duck run is stood on bare earth; one half has hardwood wood chip and the other half has lots and lots of pea shingle and it works really well for our 2 Muscovy girls

 

Thanks Cheeky Chooky, I wondered if there was a difference between 'pea shingle' and 'pea gravel' i.e. Wickes do a giant bag of the former for around £35 (plus delivery) and the latter seems to be (where I can find it) more expensive. I did look at the larger, more rounded 20mm gravel that Wickes do today, same price, but I wondered ducks feet would deal with it. I'm assuming that as you mention shingle, it would be fine to use this. We have 5, one drake and Khaki Campbells of one sort or another.

[BGD]

Hi, I was beginning to notice the smell and flies in my duck pen, particularly when the weather has been warm.

I was also worrying about the neighbours so I have started to mix Bokashi bran in with their pellets. I have been pleased because it seems to have helped quite a lot. The whole area seems much sweeter and I have hardly noticed any flies.

I also use Stalosan regularly and find that it really helps too.

 

I have 2 Pekin ducks in a 12ft x 9ft WIR that is half slabbed and half hemcore and this seems to work quite well. When I am at home they are allowed out into a larger area surrounding the run.

 

Excellent, Whitewestie, never heard of the bran before so thank you for the tip, willc ertainly try this out! I'm lucky enough to work at home so the ducks have an expectation of not spending too much time in their pen.

[Chicken shack]

My 3 ducks have an eglu go with extended run for the night. I do not leave any water in there at night. During the day they have a reasonable area to FR with a child's paddling pool. I change the water every other day. The water does stink a bit when I tip it up to empty it out. That's about it. I agree that they are more messy than the chokes though. I don't seam to get to many flies. I spread garden lime about but only when I think about it. They did get a bit smelly in the Go run during the winter as they spend longer during the shorter days. I moved it around. Although my neighbour is in his garden all year it has not been a problem. The drier weather also helps!

[Chortle Chook]

My ducks free range across my garden with the chickens. I don't have any grass but I do have a mix of pea shingle in the area where their pond (child's sand pit from Argos) is, and hard wood chips over earth elsewhere. I've found that both work well and their little duck feet are just fine. I also us Stalosan where things have got muddy. The bokashi bran and the Stalosan can be got, I think, from Omlet or Wiggly Wigglers.

 

One thing, though, Call Ducks don't seem to be all that messy.