duck intelligence

[Cayuga momma]

I found this article about duck senses.
I'm reading this now
https://www.ducks.org/conservation/...ience/understanding-waterfowl-the-five-senses

 

[Cayuga momma]

Here is a part about taste that I copied from the article:
The sense of taste in waterfowl is generally considered to be less well-developed than that of mammals and many other animals. Taste is a sensation produced when food particles in the mouth react chemically with receptor cells located on the taste buds, which are typically located in greatest number on the tongue. Generally speaking, the more taste buds you have, the better your sense of taste. Waterfowl have only about 400 taste buds, while humans have 9,000 and catfish have a whopping 100,000. Nevertheless, the presence of small numbers of taste buds indicates that waterfowl have at least some capacity to distinguish between certain flavors. In fact, chemical repellents have recently been developed to keep resident Canada geese away from crops and lawns. When applied, these chemicals, which come in flavors such as grape soda, have been shown to render crops and grass unpalatable to Canada geese.

 

[Miss Lydia]

me : misread that as tobacco and was wondering how on earth it had no effect.

Leave it to @Jpat to have his ducks smoking cigarettes and chewing tobacco

 

[Jpat]

Here is a part about taste that I copied from the article:
The sense of taste in waterfowl is generally considered to be less well-developed than that of mammals and many other animals. Taste is a sensation produced when food particles in the mouth react chemically with receptor cells located on the taste buds, which are typically located in greatest number on the tongue. Generally speaking, the more taste buds you have, the better your sense of taste. Waterfowl have only about 400 taste buds, while humans have 9,000 and catfish have a whopping 100,000. Nevertheless, the presence of small numbers of taste buds indicates that waterfowl have at least some capacity to distinguish between certain flavors. In fact, chemical repellents have recently been developed to keep resident Canada geese away from crops and lawns. When applied, these chemicals, which come in flavors such as grape soda, have been shown to render crops and grass unpalatable to Canada geese.

Thats good info!

Leave it to @Jpat to have his ducks smoking cigarettes and chewing tobacco

Hahaha

 

[Jpat]

Probably why my old duck came running when i was outside smoking.

Lota of cases of dogs and cats addicted to second hand smoke

 

[DuckyDonna]

You are not cruel at all! On the contrary! When i painted my duckling's outside house, i mixed Capsaicin into the paint. Mammals do feel the burning effect of that, birds don't, so i speculate the racoon won't chew through the wood.
The pepper plants have developed that mechanism to avoid having their fruits eaten by mammals (i.e. rabbits) in which digestive tract the seeds will be destroyed. Birds don't feel any effect of Capsaicin and the pepper seeds pass through their digestive track unharmed. When pooped out, the seed receives an additional portion of fertilizer and the seeds are being distributed to greater distances because birds usually fly wheras rabbits do not.
My ducks like everything that contains peppers, tomato and curcuma (curry!). But they hate garlic! Everything sweet they like too. When Limpy was sick last year, i added dextrose to his drinking water, boy did he gulped it down!
So i'm not sure how and if taste and smell work together, and yes texture is important too: My Duckies love those long yellow "worms" (french fries) but mashed potatoes - Näh! Eat yourself humon!
It's complicated…

This has sort of nothing to do with ducks but when we had our charter fishing boat we used to dump one of those big Sam's Club sized bottles of cayenne pepper in each gallon of "bottom paint". It kept the barnacles from growing on the bottom of the boat. It really worked! Apparently fishy type stuff doesn't like it. So those of you near the oceans might be able to use this nugget of information!

 

[CrystaBub]

me : misread that as tobacco and was wondering how on earth it had no effect.

me too!!!!! I didn't even realize it said 'tabasco' and not 'tobacco' until your post PaulX!

 

[CrystaBub]

Leave it to @Jpat to have his ducks smoking cigarettes and chewing tobacco

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I found this article about duck senses.
I'm reading this now
https://www.ducks.org/conservation/...ience/understanding-waterfowl-the-five-senses

Here is a part about taste that I copied from the article:
The sense of taste in waterfowl is generally considered to be less well-developed than that of mammals and many other animals.
[…]
Waterfowl have only about 400 taste buds, while humans have 9,000 and catfish have a whopping 100,000. Nevertheless, the presence of small numbers of taste buds indicates that waterfowl have at least some capacity to distinguish between certain flavors. In fact, chemical repellents have recently been developed to keep resident Canada geese away from crops and lawns. When applied, these chemicals, which come in flavors such as grape soda, have been shown to render crops and grass unpalatable to Canada geese.

First, thank you very much for sharing this article! Very interesting to read.
But at one point i disagree with the author, i do not think that the number of taste buds is that essential to the sense of taste.
Think about a little parrots brain and they can learn human languages, really learn the meaning of some dozen words. Think about the size of a duck's brain in comparison to our brains and what amazing things this little brains can do. I forgot where i read it, but scientists have examined parrot brains and found out that the neurons are packed much tighter together in a bird-brain than in human brains, so they can do the same with using less volume, they are just more efficient. Why should ducks not have a more advanced taste and hearing area in their brains, compensating the "lack" of sensors with more thinking?
My duckies know very well, what they like to eat and what they don't like. For example they lover french fries (yes, i know: Bad food! They get them only from time to time…) and we like to make our own version of fries without oil in a hot air oven. And we like to season our fries with different spices, we had curry fries - the duckies loved them, we had spicy hot fries - the duckies were unstoppable, and then we had fries with a seasoning mix - the duckies hated them. I looked at the ingredients of the spice mix and it contained garlic - my ducks hate garlic, the smell of fresh garlic makes them run away! - The thing is we both could not smell any garlic in that seasoning mix, so the ducks were better than us…