Eggs, slugs, wet-ground birds
Ducks
Better layers than chickens in winter, murder on slugs, and they don’t scratch the garden to death.
Products: Eggs (richer) · Meat · Down · Slug control
- Start with
- Khaki Campbell or Welsh Harlequin for eggs; Pekin or Muscovy for meat. Muscovy is quiet and hatches her own.
- Housing
- They drown in deep waterers as ducklings and freeze to the ground in slush as adults if they can’t get dry. A dry shed plus a kiddie pond you dump. They do not need a creek — and a creek lets snapping turtles and mink take them.
- Feed
- Similar to chickens plus more niacin (they get it from bugs and peas). They waste less range if you let them into the garden after the plants are established.
- Water
- They must dunk their heads to keep eyes and nostrils clean. A deep enough bowl, dumped daily.
- Breeding
- Muscovy will sit. Others may need an incubator, 28 days (35 for Muscovy).
- Health
- Wet dirty litter = wrecked feet. Keep a dry bed.
- Predators
- Same as chickens, plus mink along the creek. Lock up at night.
- Harvest
- Pekins at 8–10 weeks. Harder to pluck than chickens — wax or skin them.
Garden partners
A pair of ducks in the cabbage after heads have formed will clear slugs that would have ruined the kraut crop. Do not give them newly seeded beds — they have flat feet and optimism.