Duck and Potato Patch

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Hi Friends,

i like to try to grow some potatoes here this summer and i am asking myself if i can utilize my ducks as a natural pest control. I know that potato plants are highly toxic to almost all animals, but do my ducks know that too? Has anybody ever let ducks loose in a potato patch?

 

[Duckworth]

I have not let my ducks into my garden. I can say that mine LOVE tomatoes, but I am always careful not to give them any stems.

 

[crazy4ChickensNducks]

Normally they know what is okay for them to eat

 

[CayugaJana]

If they were mine, I wouldn’t do it. Especially if they are shut in the area with the potato plants. They might get too bored and try eating it. My ducks have a half acre to roam on and they still chose to eat azaleas that made them wildly sick. They won’t eat it anymore but I wouldn’t risk it.

 

[Texag87]

If you do decide to let them in there, be careful once the potatoes start coming in. Any that grow above soil and are exposed to the sun develope those green patches on them which are toxic even to humans. I have thought of sending in the ducks in late spring to get the bugs and grasshoppers out of the potatoes. My gut feeling is they won’t disturb established plants but I have no experience doing it.there is a chance the plants are toxic because potatoes are the only thing we can grow that the deer do not mow down.

 

[Duckworth]

The nightshade family are all toxic to most animals and people. That family includes potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, tomatillos, and, I believe, thorn apple (datura—usually seem as a large weed with very large, white, trumpet-shaped flowers). Affects range mild to lethal, though the fruits of tomato, pepper, eggplant, and tomatillo plants are not toxic. Potatoes are toxic if they are exposed to the sun during growth and develop green coloring. I once read (here maybe) of someone who pulled a bunch of tomato horn worms off of his tomato vines and fed them to his chickens, who devoured them, but were all dead the next day. So I’m not sure that eating bugs and caterpillars that have been eating nightshades is safe.

 

[Cayuga momma]

The nightshade family are all toxic to most animals and people. That family includes potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, tomatillos, and, I believe, thorn apple (datura—usually seem as a large weed with very large, white, trumpet-shaped flowers). Affects range mild to lethal, though the fruits of tomato, pepper, eggplant, and tomatillo plants are not toxic. Potatoes are toxic if they are exposed to the sun during growth and develop green coloring. I once read (here maybe) of someone who pulled a bunch of tomato horn worms off of his tomato vines and fed them to his chickens, who devoured them, but were all dead the next day. So I’m not sure that eating bugs and caterpillars that have been eating nightshades is safe.

Hi Friends,

i like to try to grow some potatoes here this summer and i am asking myself if i can utilize my ducks as a natural pest control. I know that potato plants are highly toxic to almost all animals, but do my ducks know that too? Has anybody ever let ducks loose in a potato patch?

That green part that potatoes have has poisonous alkaloids in it. The same alkaloids are found in the stems and leaves too.

As far as tomato plants go some say they are toxic, others say they are not. One study

Spoiler: Article

https://www.researchgate.net/public...first_report_of_malformation_in_chick_embryos

shows that they can be possibly toxic to humans and animal.

 

[DuckyDonna]

Have you thought about growning sweet potatoes? I've got a big bin made out of a piece of fencing and some black cloth around it. It's right next to the duck run and the leaves and vines grow right up and over the bins and make great fun for the ducks and produced a great crop for us! I've still got a whole box of them left.

Those leaves are totally edible for ducks and humans and have lots of nice bugs on them for the ducks to eat. I dump the duck's water buckets on them every night when I clean their water.

 

[Cayuga momma]

 

[Miss Lydia]

Oh yum I love sweet taters I think I’ll do that!!