Are Ducks Good For The Garden

Posts: 45

Location: WI, USA (Zone 5) Continental ~33" avg. rainfall

posted 9 years ago

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We have had free range chickens for several years and this is our first year with the free ranging ducks. We have had the following experience.

Free ranging chickens will destroy almost any type of garden area due to their scratching and desire to create a dust bath. Given several acres of land, they will find where you have planted things to do this, probably because the soil is already somewhat loose and they like to scratch through the mulch. In fact, I think our chickens are now conditioned to search out areas mulched in straw as a starting point for their scratching

This works great after a crop has been harvested, since they pick up any left-over bits and do a nice job of breaking down the organic matter and adding a little fertilizer in the process, but he only real success we have had around "living" plants is in a tree nursery. They do a nice job of knocking down the grass in between the trees without doing any damage to the trees themselves. They are much more selective than me with a string trimmer... (These trees are all over 3' tall at this point).

The ducks are much less destructive around most plants since they move through an area in a group with their head down looking for bugs. The problem is with the smaller plants and once again, the attaction to mulch.

We put in a 40' row of beans under a nice oat straw mulch and they went right down the row, grubbing out every bean plant as they fluffed up the mulch looking for bugs.
They also like strawberries and new asparagus shoots, but they know when it is getting woody and will leave it alone after that, so as long as you keep them out for a few weeks in the spring, they are good to go.
They like new corn, but will leave it alone after it is about 1ft high.
They go up and down our hop rows, fluffing the mulch and leaving the hops alone.
They walk around the potato towers and once again grub around the bottom, but don't touch the plants.
They walk the grape vines, fluffing the mulch but leaving even the newly planted grapes alone.

Other observations,

The ducks stay together as a group much better than the chickens.
They are easier to herd to/from an area because they are a little slower moving and once again, travel as a group.
They don't jump over fences, even small 2 foot temporary fencing. This is good when trying to keep them out of an area for a short period of time and makes it easy to step over for people.
They will hang by the pool and love a little shade, but ours routinely walk the length of our property, heads down, ruffling through the grass in an orderly line like a search party.
Watching them swim in a pool and talk amoungst themselves is worth the price of admission.

We also installed several pools and pond liners, uphill from our garden area, with drains and ball valves. (I think this was in a Geoff Lawton video?) Every few days, I connect a hose to this and let gravity help me water my grapes, asparagus, and other plants while I clean the pond for the ducks. This simple system has made the whole pond thing go from "pain in the @ss" to "totally free fertilized water"

Overall, I think that having ducks around a (larger)garden is beneficial and can be "managed" much easier through temperary fencing, etc. and are useful around many plants while they are growing.
However, they are much messier in a small area and would struggle in a confined area.

For reference, the ducks we have are Silver Appleyards and were hatched this spring.

taking things to their illogical extreme, one conversation at a time...