In Eliot coleman's "four season harvest" book he recommends having a couple of ducks roam your gardens to eat the insects. I live on three acres in zone 5b with a small pond and would like to try this idea. Does anyone have any advice? i am well aquainted with animals of the domestic variety, cats, dogs, lovebird, but I have never cared for farm animals. Thank-yall very much.
duck!
lisa - - - ducks will in fact eat insects, but be prepared for a mess. They love to get on your porches and make a BIG mess (if you get what I mean) - - if you want a fowl that will eat insects and not stay too close to your front/back doors, you might try guineas. Have you looked into them at all? Best of luck.
Belinda
I have ducks and I have to say I love them dearly. The breed I have are muscovy ducks and I was told by a few people that they were nasty when everyone I was reading was the opposite and I have to say they are WONDERFUL and quite the characters. Our golden retriever loves to play with them, the ducks love to groom the dog, and the cats give them a wide berth except one of our kittens who likes to also play with them. They are messy though, that I have to admit, BUT I try and keep them away from the house, lol, as much as possible. As far as a pond goes, they are very happy with a good size children's swimming pool (the hard ones). They have given many hours of enjoyment watching their antics. The muscovy duck loves to eat flies and they are great to have around horses, my horses appreciate the "job" they do. Would I get some again, yes for sure. They do however follow me around like a dog, chattering away. The muscovy is the only duck that does not "quack" but they do fly for short distances and sometimes when I start walking to the house from the barn I can hear them flying behind me, trying to follow me as quick as they can as I "run" to ensure they don't follow me to the house, too funny. Just don't give them treats near the house and they won't be tempted to come to the house and come up on the deck like my guys do. I keep the pressure washer out in the spring and summer at all times so no big deal for us.
thank-you guys. I have not thought of guineas, but I have seen them around here for flea and tick control. I like the idea of the ducks being like pets. If I do get ducks where do they live in winter? What do they eat in winter? Do they go to the vet or need any special care for good health?
I moved my ducks from their "summer residence" into our horse stable, they have their own roomies 15 x 15 stall, lol, when it got REALLY cold (-42 celcius). The stall is insulated and I put shavings down of course for bedding but also added so grass hay so they could burrow down into it and keep warmer, mind you they never seemed cold. My ducks are fed a non-medicated feed. Do not feed regular poultry feed with medication to your ducks or they will die so ensure it is a non-medicated feed. They love to have bread but I don't give them too much of that and they LOVE rice crispy cereal, they eat anything and everything just about. Now, these are pets but if I was raising them for meat they wouldn't be getting the "junk" food, lol. In the winter I give them some added greens. When they are very young you need to feed them a non-medicated starter food, that is very important and your feed store will carry that. None have been sick to date, I got them last May and all are healthy and thriving. Mine are very docile and dog like and I often pick them up and walk around with them mind you the drake is alot larger than the females. My grandaughter named them "Donald" for the drake and the two females are "Daisy" and "One eyed Susie (poor thing was attached by a racoon but survived minus one eye)
I don't know about the insect eating, but I know they love peas. I knew a fellow that had some of the muscovy ducks. They wandered around his garden. I don't remember him saying they bothered anything else, but when he went to pick his peas he found the shells hanging on the plants with no peas in them. He couldn't figure what happened. He started watching and it was the ducks. They would turn their head sideways and somehow force the peas out.
If we add duckies to our family(with all your advice we probably will-next spring) we are going to name them Sam and Ella. This year I am going to create a home for them and continue to educate myself. Thank-you again.
We had many muscovies in the past . They were great and good with our children. Our first pair were Ritz and Graham Quacker.They lay large clutches and hatched many successfully.