Do Ducks Eat Flies

[bel]

My Cayugas and runners attract flies, and eat my garden rather than the flies, they are awesome at getting rid of slugs and snails though.
ducks splash water and poop a lot the moisture really brings flies in.

I heard muscovies are better at catching flies, I hope they are we will get a couple eventually.

 

[mominoz]

Flys, grasshoppers anything that moves!!they start in the brooder ! I also live next to cattleland, and have horses, so I use traps, I buy and release fly predators (takes some years to really build up, but they do make a dent in the population) and have my ducks.Runners and some more. Course the cow people don't do anything about the flys except some fly traps or strips , oh,k and they use chicken manure ont he hayfields,talk about flys!After they spread it, it's like a horror movie!That and the grasshoppers were eating all my garden and plants. Until I got my ducks!!!!they hang around the garden and chow down!

 

[DuckLover179]

Weird thing, but mine won't go anywhere near the flys. They don't eat bugs at all actually... They like to forage through/eat hay much better!

 

[D'Angelo N Va.]

I have some muscovies on the pond and one girl in particular is on it first thing in the morning, most of the day and late in the evening swimming around after every insect flying across the pond...she is like a tennis star crossing over the net after things...it is amazing.

 

[Mellisa]

I feel your pain on the bumblebee. We finally have honeybees in our yard after several lean years where there was little pollination. This year we had thousands. Each was a welcome visitor, producing a bumper crop of tomatoes, lettuce seed for winter planting, eggplant, and more.
I like to watch the garden from my bedroom window. I watched a fence lizard stalk and EAT one of my little Beaus (I call all of the bees 'Beau'). The hives belong to my neighbor.
We have dozens of fence lizards in our garden and I love them very much. It kind of stung seeing that one bee get lunched.
A few weeks later, I found the body of a lizard in the driveway. The peahen, Corona, killed it and ate the tail. *more sadness*
We love all our critters.
The Muskovy fowl have not been seen eating too many flies yet but they do attack puddles with gnats on the surface like competition eaters. And they kill and eat hornets! When the hornets come to drink water at their kiddie pool, the Muskovies chomp on them.
Lovely vision. Those are some critters I respect but don't love and I don't mourn their death.

 

[chickens really]

I feel your pain on the bumblebee. We finally have honeybees in our yard after several lean years where there was little pollination. This year we had thousands. Each was a welcome visitor, producing a bumper crop of tomatoes, lettuce seed for winter planting, eggplant, and more.
I like to watch the garden from my bedroom window. I watched a fence lizard stalk and EAT one of my little Beaus (I call all of the bees 'Beau'). The hives belong to my neighbor.
We have dozens of fence lizards in our garden and I love them very much. It kind of stung seeing that one bee get lunched.
A few weeks later, I found the body of a lizard in the driveway. The peahen, Corona, killed it and ate the tail. *more sadness*
We love all our critters.
The Muskovy fowl have not been seen eating too many flies yet but they do attack puddles with gnats on the surface like competition eaters. And they kill and eat hornets! When the hornets come to drink water at their kiddie pool, the Muskovies chomp on them.
Lovely vision. Those are some critters I respect but don't love and I don't mourn their death.

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[Duck_Duck_Goose]

I stumbled on this post and am admittedly a bit confused. I’ve read articles saying to control the fly population as they can actually be harmful to ducks (and chickens and geese) as they may cause botulism (both the flies and maggots) but here I’m understanding that people are welcoming ducks eating the flies? We just lost two cherished Muscovies to botulism and have been desperately trying to figure out how they got it so we can avoid this devastating loss if we choose to ‘duck parent’ again. We had had a lot of flies and one of our girls did find them tasty. We also live in a hot/humid climate that had had an unusual amount of rain which we’ve learned can be a factor however our girls had gone through these seasonal conditions before with no issue. While nothing will bring our girls back I’m trying to gather as much info as possible and am now wondering should we let our next potential feathered family members eat flies or trap them?