How Do I Keep It Dry Around My Duck & Goose Drinkers???

For ducks, water is more than a nutrient.  It is a source of entertainment, a way to keep clean, a method to make eating easier, a way to keep cool in hot weather, an area to mate and a place to find great things to eat.  No wonder they spend so much time near water and make such a mess with it!!!

After speaking to hundreds of duck and goose hobbyists and farmers, problems with water is one of their major concerns.  "How do I provide it to them in the best way possible and how do I prevent a mess?"  It boils down to your drinker/waterer and the flooring around the water source.  I will discuss the different types of waterers in another blog.  For now, let us look at the best flooring around their water source.


Flooring
No matter the type of waterer you use (bucket, bell waterer, nipples, or automatic float waterer) a slatted or wire floor under the waterer works wonders.  The objective is to not allow your ducks and geese to play in their spilled water.  This prevents mud from spreading throughout the pen, reduces your bedding bill and keeps the birds and their drinking water cleaner.

You can use many different types of flooring.  You want the openings large enough that the water and manure drop through but you want enough surface area that the birds are comfortable walking on it.  In fact, ducks and geese often prefer wire or slat flooring in warm weather as it allows cooler air to circulate below them.  The picture above is our breeder ducks on the wire flooring under their nipple waterers.  Below is a single flooring piece, 5'x10'.

We have great success with PVC coated welded wire flooring.  It is most commonly 1"x1" but we have also used 3/4"x2 1/2" and 1"x2" openings.  The PVC coating greatly extends the life of the wire but is more expensive and often difficult to find.   You want to get as thick of a wire as possible.  Remember that the lower the gauge number, the thicker the wire.  The main advantage of welded wire flooring is that there is very little surface area - any spilled water immediately flows through the flooring and out of reach of the duck or goose.  The only disadvantage of the welded wire is that it eventually rusts and you must repair or replace it before it injures the feet of your birds.  The picture below is the 1/2"x1/2" PVC coated welded wire we use in our smaller brooder room.

There are also many types of plastic flooring made for poultry.  Any of these should work well and they typically have a longer life than wire flooring.  Below is a 2'x4' plastic poultry flooring piece in use and individually.

For our brooder barn, we purchased a very nice flooring.... for ducklings.  Unfortunately the hocks of the geese became caught in the holes from about 3 to 10 days of age.  To prevent this we had to put 1/2" hardware cloth over it.  This is not good as the manure does not drop through easily and quickly builds up on the floor.  But if we only had ducks in there, and no welded wire - it would work great!

Prior to the introduction of plastic flooring, strips of oak were used in the United States.  In Asia, strips of bamboo are used. Below is a picture of a hardwood platform and another  gray plastic flooring we tried that was originally designed for swine.

No matter the type of flooring you choose, you will need to build a frame to hold it.   Normally this is made from 2"x4" lumber.  For extra longevity, use treated lumber.  For our wire platforms, we put a 2x4 support every 12".  Even then, the wire stretches and sags between the 2x4s after a couple of years.

If your waterer is over dirt, dig a pit and place the flooring over your pit.  You want that water to soak into the ground, not flow out from below the flooring into your bedding.   Normally a pit that is 1'-2' deep is sufficient.  If you decide to dig a deeper pit, you should probably build a wooden frame liner to prevent the sides from collapsing.  You only need to line the top 12" of the pit walls.  The picture below shows the pits we built for our new goose pens.  These pits were lined with plastic so the manure would not leach into the soil.

If your pit is lined with plastic or concrete, you will need to be able to pump it out periodically.  We have a manure wagon for our interior and exterior pits.  For smaller operations you can use a simple trash  pump to suck it out and spread it on your used bedding, a pasture or garden area.  If your pit is not lined and you don't have a large number of ducks or geese, it will probably soak into the soil and not require frequent cleaning.

You want to make sure the flooring is wide enough that it catches all the splashed water and manure your ducks and geese generate.  Ours are all five feet wide.

By using wire, plastic or wood flooring under your waterers, you will alleviate one of the biggest problems confronted by duck and goose hobbyists and farmers.  Your life will be much easier - less bedding to spread, fewer dirty eggs, and your ducks and geese will be happier as they will be cleaner and always have fresh water to drink.

Please refer to our blog on sources of poultry flooring, so you can find the flooring you need.

What do you use around your waterers to prevent mud and mess?

Do Ducks Prefer Showers or Baths? Research Results

Originally posted by John Metzer on Thu, Dec 09, 2010 @ 02:56 PM


Research was conducted in England on the best way to provide cleansing water for ducks being grown for meat production.  There is no legal requirement for providing this water but the Council of Europe has recommended that ducks be able to dip their head in water and spread water over their feathers.

The research was done by Dr. Tracey Jones, Dr. Marian Dawkins and Dr. Corri Waitt of Oxford College.  They had two objectives:

1) Did birds prefer one water source over another?
2) Did birds grown only on nipple waterers “miss” water bathing activities?

Methods
Birds were provided water by one of the following:
1)baths for swimming (37”x 26”x 10” deep)
2)troughs for head cleaning and splashing (37”x 5”x 3” deep)
3)showers  (4 irrigation sprinklers per pen)
4)nipple waterers
5)nipple waterers for the first 35 days and then troughs
6)baths, troughs, showers and nipples all in the same pen

All the Pekin ducklings were initially grown together and then at 24 days were placed in the research pens.  Each pen was about 10'x12' and contained four ducks.  The baths and troughs were emptied and cleaned once a day.  The sprinklers ran 24 hours per day, high pressure during the day and low pressure at night.  The upper part of the pen was bedded with straw and fresh straw was added daily.  The water was provided at the lower portion of the pen.  Spilled and dumped water drained out of the pen.

Ducks were visually inspected at the end of each week and scored for the condition of their eyes, nostrils, feathers, posture and walking ability.  Body weight was measured at 24, 36 and 53 days of age.  Behavior was recorded once a week for 10-12 hours and broken down into different activities such as bathing, swimming, walking, dabbling, preening, etc.

Results
At six weeks of age, the only ducks that had crusty eyes or nostrils were the nipple ducks.  These same nipple ducks also had the lowest feather scores with only 17% having clean, smooth feathers.  Trough ducks were intermediate with 67%.  The shower and bath ducks scored 95% and the ducks that started with nipples and finished with troughs scored 92%.  All ducks, except the nipple ducks, were well oiled (seen as a yellow tint to the feathers and a waxy coating on the feathers).  There was no effect of treatment on posture, walking ability, body weight or growth rate.

There were few signs of frustration in ducks reared without bathing water.  Interestingly,  when the nipple ducks were offered  bath water, initially they did not spend much time in the bath water.  But by the 7th week, they were spending more time in the bath than birds that were raised with the bath water.  This  suggests that ducks reared only with nipples were behaviorally deprived and were compensating with extra time in the bathing water during week seven.

Only about 5% of the time were the birds  bathing, indicating that they may not need access to bathing water all the time.  The results also showed  that, when given a choice, ducks preferred nipples least as a source of water.  If ducks were given all four sources of water, their first choice was showers as they spent more time resting and dabbling from them.
Comments
Very few commercial farms have any type of open water available for growing or breeding ducks.  The main disadvantage of open waters is 1) larger bodies of water, such as ponds, can quickly become contaminated with Campylobacter and other organisms that can harm duck and human health and 2) it is difficult to dispose of this water as it cannot be allowed to run into other bodies or streams of water that run off the farm.  Larger farms would have to make their own sewage plant to handle the runoff water from spillage and daily dumping of the baths or troughs.  But for those growers that want to maximize the welfare of their birds, this research will benefit their planning.

We have the complete research article posted on our website if you would like more detailed information.