Storms and chickens

[Greg]

I have two chickens and two ducks which live happily together and had them on grass. This soon turned into very smelly mud so have decided to keep them on the patio slabs instead to keep them cleaner.

Question is, what do I put on the floor and how often should I clean it out to prevent the mess/smell.

I also cover the run with Omlet Covers so it should mostly be kept dry (unless the rain comes in from the sides)

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Cat tails]

Have no experience with ducks, but what I gather from people here with ducks they are very messy in general. You could try wood chips, I would do aubiose. Don’t think it will stay dry with ducks. How often you need to change this really depends heavily on the size of the run. The bigger the run, the less smelly/mucky it will get. Maybe @Lewis can tell you what you could use best. I think he had ducks.

Alternatively you could try keeping them on just paving slabs, so you can just hose it down and provide them with a good sized separate dustbath filled with sand or dirt.

[mullethunter]

And water presumably

[Lewis]

As you've found out, ducks are a lot messier than chickens as they tend to root around under the grass rather than pecking at it.

I have my run on a paved base and allow them to free range when allowed. We use Aubiose as bedding, could use hardwood chips too.

[Tara40]

I used to keep my chickens and ducks together in a huge run , my chickens could access some soil u dear a tree in their enclosure but they had to jump over some wood which worked , I had 4 Indian runners and 3 call ducks with 17 chickens at the time. Never again to much to look after . However they are thoroughly beautiful to watch