Duck "Pond" Water = Great Fertilizer?

[tiedyemommy]

We've only had our flock for one week...and so far, so good! We have 5 chickens & 5 ducks. I was recently informed that the ducks' "pond" (kiddie pool) water makes excellent garden fertilizer. Does anyone know if this is true or not? Any personal experiences? Either way, we still plan on watering our back yard with it, so as to not let the water go to waste.

- TieDyeMommy

 

[DeannaMari]

Yup! It's true. We had a huge pond for our ducks, that we dug out and then we would fill it up with a hose. We pumped it out once a week to clean it out, and when we pumped it out, we'd pump it into the garden, super large tomatoes! And also, since it was like 200 gallons of water, and much too much to use in our gardens and fruit trees, we would put it on different areas of the lawn each day, and those areas would always grow fast like 4x as fast as the rest of the yard.

 

[sheeshshe]

WOW! this is awesome information! woo!

how often would you clean out the kiddie pool? I have 3 week old ducklings, and this is all new to me. I assumed it would need to be changed daily., is this correct?

 

[Amiga]

Especially in hot weather, I dump, rinse and refill daily. On extremely hot days, like close to 100˚F, I will dump and refill again around 2 p.m., the hottest part of the day. I have a shallow channel from the duck Day Pen to three raised garden beds downslope. I can redirect the water. It works very well.

"Duck Poop Soup" was the rinse water from the towels we used in the brooder. Amazing results with that. Our lilies love it.

 

[DeannaMari]

Well we had a huge pond, so we cleaned it out about once a week. A larger body of water takes more time to heat up and get dirty, but we also had a smaller kiddy pool for the babies, and we would clean that out about twice a week, but the babies had limited access. I would clean it whenever it turns mucky, it depends what else your ducks have access to.

 

[tiedyemommy]

Thanks DeannaMari! I watered our veggie garden with it this morning & it is currently being drained out over parts of our back yard right now. Looking forward to the perks.

- TieDyeMommy

 

[tiedyemommy]

Sheeshshe, we have a large kiddie pool and the previous owners of our flock said he changed it out once a week (we have 5 mostly grown ducks). When the weather gets warmer, I may change it out twice a week. It's under a tree and gets plenty of shade. I guess you could just keep an eye on your water and determine when you feel it needs to be changed out.

- TieDyeMommy

 

[sheeshshe]

awesome, thanks! I don't have anything yet, hopefully I will figure out what I'm going to use soon

 

[nayeli]

We have a larger kiddie pool and clean it out at least once a week, usually more. I haven't noticed benefits but we always dump in the some area so it is probably over watered.