How do your ducks do in the garden with the plantings? I had ducks before but never inside the fence so I didn't know if they would do harm to the veggies or not. I would love to have some again.
Bells
The pair of ducks I have are a French breed. Supposedly, the city they are from encourages every household to have ducks (I once heard the number that was recommended is 6). The ducks are (mostly) flightless, so easier to contain than chickens. Households are encouraged to keep them to deal with composting and insect issues. I don't have a garden yet, but my ducks do make the rounds looking for treats and I've hardly noticed slugs since I got them. They do a good job fluffing up the soil everywhere they go, especially when it is wet -- it would probably be best to keep them out of fresh planting areas. They scratch a bit, but not nearly as much as chickens do, and they don't tend to peck as much at things above the ground. They are FAR quieter than chickens. The female duck makes a "QUACK, Quack, quack" noise, and the Drake makes almost no noise at all. I'm sure it would be a lot louder with more females around. It is hard for me to judge the poo issue because I have 5 free-range turkeys sharing the same yard -- the general consensus is that ducks are "messy", I would say they are less messy than turkeys! We deal with that by letting them be out and about as much as possible. They do like to sleep in their little pond, and that has to be dumped and refilled with frequency, which isn't a difficult chore but could be an issue in areas where water use is restricted. The ducks give us large delicious eggs.
The only thing is these ducks don't mix very well with chickens because the Drake gets all affectionate with the hens and that can be fatal for the hen. We keep our chickens in a coop and pasture compound and the ducks have a partially covered fenced area at night and free range during the day. Next spring I'd like to make a large fenced duck habitat/garden with a more proper coop. They can keep the slugs off my plants.
The ducks are out and about loving the rain while all the other birds are under cover. They are SO cute. Their babies (under the care of a Barred Plymouth Rock foster mom) are a week old now. It will soon be time to get them into a pan of water for their first swim and to activate their oil glands. I may pass out from the cuteness when we do this. I hope to get a few more females from this hatching. In spring, I hope to let the duck do her own brooding/raising.
I saw a video recently about a woman running an organic garden down at the Oregon coast. She has ducks, and showed her routine of letting them out mid-morning to do their garden chores. That's when they are done laying their eggs and are ready to work.
