10 Bedding Options for Ducks (3 Will Protect Your Ducklings’ Feet)

If you own ducks you probably already know that they’re quite self-sufficient. They are seemingly impervious to wet and cold weather, and that means it’s easy to keep them in a wide variety of environments, even ones that are truly frigid!

But ducks aren’t invincible, and they still need a warm, safe shelter to stay in when the weather turns truly awful. And your duck coop, or duck house, should have a lining of bedding on the ground to help absorb moisture and give your flock some much-needed insulation.

But ducks have different requirements compared to chickens and other livestock when it comes to bedding…

Picking the wrong stuff can actually injure them and facilitate devastating sickness, and making an innocent but ignorant choice could have terrible consequences for your beloved birds. We won’t let that happen though, thanks to this detailed guide I’m bringing you on duck bedding.

Bedding	Pros	Cons
Shredded paper	Cheap, reduces waste, highly absorbent	Too absorbent, turns boggy when wet
Pine needles	Often free	Too sharp when dried, can puncture ducks’ webbed feet. Major fire hazard
Hay and straw	Soft, absorbent, very insulating	Susceptible to dangerous mold, must be changed often
Leaves	Free, fairly soft and absorbent	Susceptible to mold, cannot be replenished throughout year.
Cedar shavings	Antimicrobial, widely available, cheap	Tends to be dusty, also a known irritant and allergen
Aspen shavings	Soft on ducks’ feet, non-allergenic, antimicrobial	Can be pricey and hard to find.
Pine shavings	Low dust, antimicrobial, cheap, fairly soft on feet	Not as soft as aspen shavings
Ground corn cob	Very soft, extremely absorbent, can be quite cheap.	Can be choking hazard as ducks might eat it, may have been treated with pesticides (verify source!)
Rice hulls	Low odor, resistant to mold	Hard to find, not very absorbent, prone to blowing around
Hemp	Soft, excellent absorbtion, low odor, resists mold	Can be hard to find and expensive, does not dry quickly

Why Do Ducks Need Bedding?

Ducks need bedding in their shelter for the same reasons that other animals and other poultry specifically need bedding: it helps keep them warm by insulating them from contact with the floor or ground, and it also gives them a soft surface to walk on.

Ducks, more than you’d think, are prone to getting injuries on their feet or webbing, and that can easily lead to bumblefoot.

But particularly for ducks, they need bedding in their coop to absorb moisture. Ducks spend a lot of time in the water – no kidding, right? – and tend to track that water everywhere. And I do mean everywhere, including right inside their home!

A moist environment and falling temperatures will lead to a pronounced chill that even ducks cannot withstand forever, and so accordingly, it’s helpful if they have a deep layer of absorbent bedding to help pull that moisture away from them and keep their overall environment drier.

What Makes Good Bedding Material

So based on what we know about our ducks’ requirements, we now know that any good bedding material must be absorbent but also, preferably, quick drying.

It also needs to be soft so that it is gentle on ducks’ feet. Anything that is rough, sharp, or jagged will quickly result in injuries that can otherwise be avoided.

A good bedding material must also be antimicrobial and low in allergens. Various mold strains, specifically Aspergillus, can cause illnesses in ducks that can literally wipe out your flock.

Other types of bedding produce too much dust which is a respiratory hazard. Ducks are very much like other birds in that they’re highly sensitive to any atmospheric contamination.

The rub is that pretty much all types of bedding have trade-offs. They will be good in some aspects but not good in others, and you have to properly manage cleaning, refreshing, and replacement to minimize hazards while maximizing benefits.

Keep that in mind as you read through the following bedding types. And don’t worry, I’ll make mention of shortcomings when and as appropriate.

Shredded Paper

Shredded paper is sometimes used for duck bedding as a cost-saving or improvised option. You can shred the stuff yourself using an office shredder or a larger commercial shredder if you generate a lot of cardboard on your homestead, or buy over-the-counter bedding products for the job.

This stuff is attractive to folks who want to reuse and reduce the impact on the environment, and it can be cheap or even free depending on how much paper you have to deal with. It also tends to be reasonably soft and gentle on your ducks’ feet.

But paper has a major problem in that it’s very absorbent. Too absorbent!

It will soak up water readily and then start to clump up and break down into a soggy mass that is slimy and difficult to walk on and actually increases the wetness problem in the coop.

That’s no good! If you’re going to use paper, expect to change it out far more frequently than you would other types of bedding.

Pine Needles

Pine needles are one of the most common and abundant types of bedding or mulch around, especially in areas where pine forests are widespread.

If you have pine trees of your own, you can rake them up by the wheelbarrow load and your bedding problems will be solved. Right? Not exactly… While soft and fairly insulating, pine needles have several major issues…

For starters, dry pine needles are very sharp on one end and can easily puncture a duck’s foot or webbing. That will fast-track infection and then you’ll be dealing with bumblefoot. Also, they aren’t particularly absorbent as they tend to shed water.

A secondary but still significant drawback is the fact that dried pine needles are massive fire hazard. If you use dry pine needle bedding in your duck house and it should catch fire, it will probably be fully involved before you can react.

And because they don’t absorb water readily and also contain volatile compounds, the fire risks of pine needles are more significant than other bedding types over time.

Bottom line: I would only use pine needles for bedding while they were green and fresh, and only as a temporary measure if I had no other choice.

Pine Shavings

Another common and popular wood species for bedding, pine shavings are distinct from pine needles: these are thin shavings of pine wood, not the “leaves” of the tree itself. Pine shavings are a fantastic choice for ducks. If you buy the right variety, it is low dust but all kinds of pine are quite resistant to microbes like mold and fungus.

Larger flakes and shavings tend to be pretty gentle on feet, though not quite as nice as aspen, and pine shavings have major price advantages because of their popularity.

This is one of the cheapest wood beddings around, and likely as cheap as it gets. It’s fairly absorbent, will dry readily with good ventilation, and can easily be refreshed by turning and putting a clean layer on top.

Hay and Straw

Hay and straw are terms that are often used interchangeably, but seasoned homesteaders know that they are not the same.

Hay as a rule, is harvested before the plant has gone to seed and is thus used as food because it’s more nutritious. Straw is the leftover stalk after a plant has gone to seed, and is more commonly used as bedding.

Both can be used as bedding for your ducks as they’re absorbent, soft, and pretty insulating.

All good qualities but hay and straw alike have a serious Achilles heel: once they get wet, they stay that way, and become the perfect hosts for those dangerous mold species I mentioned… Once this mold takes hold and releases spores, your ducks will be in deadly danger.

If you’re going to use straw or hay for bedding, it is imperative that you religiously change it out and do so regularly to prevent mold infestation. Depending on your flock’s shelter and habits, you might need to change it as often as every day and no less than once a week. If you aren’t willing to do that, don’t even think about it.

Leaves

Leaves are another fairly common substrate for duck coops, and one that’s totally free if you’re willing to collect piles of leaves throughout the year from your property or from your neighbors.

They are soft, it won’t injure feet, and are surprisingly insulating when dry. They are also reasonably absorbent. All good things to be sure…

But just like hay and straw discussed above, leaves have a potentially crippling drawback in that they tend to propagate mold, including deadly mold strains like Aspergillus fumigatus. That’s one mold variety that causes deadly infection in birds.

This can be managed by frequent changing of the leaves, but this usually demands too much from a busy homesteader. For a small backyard hobby or pet flocks, it’s a different story.

Leaves also present a logistical problem in that they don’t replenish themselves year-round. They start to fall off trees at the end of summer and that’s when you’ll need to start collecting them to be used the following year.

That can be a huge investment of time and space to store big bags of leaves, and you have the added problem that you need to keep them totally dried out in the meantime.

Cedar Shavings

Cedar shavings are ubiquitous when it comes to animal bedding, of all species…

It has quite a lot to recommend it: it is widely available, tends to be affordable, and is noted for its strong antiseptic properties. You generally don’t have to worry about any sort of mold or fungus affecting cedar!

That’s a huge advantage, no doubt about it, but I think cedar is a uniformly bad choice for ducks. For starters, it tends to be fairly dusty and is also a known allergen for people and birds particularly.

Ducks are already prone to respiratory problems, and cedar dust and vapor hanging around inside the closed confines of a coop or duck house will only exacerbate this.

As much as I hate to say it, I think you should never use cedar for your ducks!

Aspen Shavings

Now, just because cedar is a bad call for ducks doesn’t mean we need to throw out wood shavings entirely. Quite the contrary! Some wood shavings are basically ideal for the cause.

Aspen is one such wood. Aspen wood shavings, especially large flake-style shavings, are noted for being extremely low dust, non-irritating, and hypoallergenic.

It’s also respected for its mold and fungus-resistant qualities, though it doesn’t boast the same level of resistance as cedar. It’s absorbent, quick-drying, soft, and warm. Basically perfect!

I know you’re waiting for the inevitable downside, and like everything else, Aspen has one: it tends to be expensive and relatively rare in most areas.

You’ll spend two to two and a half times as much on the same amount of aspen shavings as you would cedar. For you, it might be a relatively small cost and if that’s the case don’t think twice about getting this stuff!

Ground Corn Cob

Ground corn cob is an innovative choice for your duck house, and it’s hugely absorbent meaning it is one of the best options for moisture control.

It is also readily biodegradable, meaning it is a fine choice if you make your own compost or use a deep litter method for your flock’s bedding.

It is soft on feet and fairly insulating, but it has some unique drawbacks: it might actually be attractive to ducks as food, and you don’t want them to eat it since it offers almost nothing in the way of nutrition.

It can also be a choking hazard. Investing in finely ground varieties will maximize benefits while minimizing hazards.

Also, check the source of your bedding carefully: you never want to use corn cob substrate that was grown with the use of pesticides as this can impact the health of your birds over time!

Rice Hulls

Rice hulls are rarely used as bedding for animals, and are difficult or even impossible to find locally in some parts of the country, but they can be an effective option.

They make a wonderful low-odor ground covering and are surprisingly absorbent, both attributes going a long way towards keeping the coop environment fresh.

One downside is that they’re nowhere near as absorbent as some other choices on our list, though they aren’t a substrate that is prone to hosting mold, either.

Another issue is that rice hulls are individually very light and can be blown around easily. Strong winds or a drafty coop will make regular cleanup efforts a necessity.

But I say if you can get rice hulls cheaply and reliably don’t hesitate to give them a try. You’ll probably be pleased with how well they work for your ducks.

Hemp

One of my favorite types of bedding for ducks, and one that I almost never see used elsewhere, is hemp. Hemp bedding looks like tiny little matchstick pieces, and at first glance seems like it would be a really bad idea because of its roughness.

But pick up a little bit and you’ll see for yourself that hemp is impressively soft and pliable. It’s much softer on duck feet than most other types of plant material!

It’s also great at absorbing water, and has a high capacity by mass meaning it is especially good for already damp environments or the messiest ducks. It won’t dry out as quickly as some types of wood, but hemp is also a remarkable odor stopper.

Most kinds of bacteria and mold simply won’t grow on it, and it doesn’t take on that musty smell like wet wood shavings will, or at least not as quickly.

This will be a hit-or-miss option depending on the availability and pricing. If you live in an area where hemp crops are plentiful, you can probably get it for a song and save a fortune on bedding.

But if it isn’t, you’ll end up having to pay more in which case other options like pine flakes will probably be your best bet. If you can get it for the right price, definitely give it a whirl!

So, What’s the Best Bedding for Ducklings?

Pine shavings, aspen shavings, or hemp. All of these are soft (ducklings are very vulnerable to foot injuries on rough surfaces), absorbent, and warm. But as always be prepared to change it out regularly; they will make a mess of it!