City Boy Needs To Know About Hay

poor ducks had to adjust the photo
ducks.jpg
 
thanks Major!. my neck was hurting earlier from working so hard staring at my computer entering claims, so having to flip my head or laptop on it's side was just not worth it! ;)

i spoke with my boss to be sure what she uses. she said she doesn't use hay or straw because she had some respiratory issues with her ducks, so she uses pine shavings only. i can see using a combo of the straw/hay/shavings. i usually do this in the winter/early spring. the melting snow & rain usually cause my coop to become a mess & the straw/hay helps when it gets matted down to clump the shavings together for a quicker clean out of the coop.
 
Think "diapers for livestock" when you are considering bedding. Despite the rave reviews about "deep litter method bedding" I cannot leave my chicken's bedding for months before I clean it up, or else my birds would be housed in their own filth. Part of that is bc I have a wooden floor with vinyl on top to help me keep the floor clean.
A dog can be trained to go outside. Cats hardly need to be told how to use a litter box. My horses each have a pee spot and poo spot in their stalls and more than 1/2 of their stall's bedding can be salvaged for next time.
Birds walk and dump.
My chickens poo heavily under their roosts, but the opening with the ramp can get soiled heavily, too.
I think you should clarify that for inside housing for birds you want something that will keep them dry and keep down the ammonia. My chickens have this coop, which could also be used for ducks:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?...607993596865217544&selectedIndex=0&ajaxhist=0
I use a 40 pound bag of Equine Fresh (super dried & extruded pine pellets) under my chicken's roosts to absorb the ammonia. I put medium pine shavings on top of those and on the floor bc their poo sticks to it better than fine pine shavings.
Do not use hay, if you can help it. When it is wet and especially when soiled it gets stinky fast. Straw is very nice to use as bedding. It is soft and cushy, very warm when it's cold, but it, too, needs to be cleaned up when soiled regularly.
I use a cat litter scoop, a shovel and a barn scoop, when necessary to clean up after them, and yes, Virginia, I also use my gloved hands. I clean the coop for 12 hens about 1x/week. I keep my shavings stored in a clean, metal, oil barrel and transport it to the coop with a 5 gallon plastic painter's bucket, like the ones that they sell at all of the big hardware stores.
 
Also, if you don't mind using straw outside, I like to put it down when it's muddy in their run. As soon as it get's hot and stays wet, I have to rake it up and compost it and replace with new. Right now it's above freezing and wet, so I clean up the aisle in the barn (hay mostly and some straw), put it out in a pile and the birds dig at it and spread it out for me. In the summer I empty my bag mower into my wheelbarrow and dump that in their run. They love to eat the grass like spaghetti.
After decomposing in a bird's run you get awesome compost for gardening.
 
Is there any way that you can put the duck house higher, like on cement blocks? It would stay drier that way. I love dog runs for birds!!! You have to protect them. As long as you keep it reasonably clean, there is plenty of room for them to get exercise, play and be happy as..."DUCKS!"
Free ranging is a Hollywood notion that all of your birds come back every day and aren't picked off by predators at night. It takes months to grow your birds to laying age, and you do a bit of training them, like the flocks who wouldn't all go in the coop every night, and I had to throw them in and barricade the door for about one week to convince them to do so. It has worked every time.
THEN, there are those days that the average American won't budge from the house but you have animal chores, so you have to take 5 minutes to bundle up, carry water and feed and collect eggs. This is when the prey is scarcer, so that dog run is especially valuable.
 
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