Ducks and edible mushrooms

[Amiga]

Anyone with experience?

Thinking, oyster, shiitake, hen of the woods.

Fer instance: do they go after them outdoors? I have seen a couple of my ducks nibble at mushrooms outside with no ill effects. But would love to hear from someone with experience here.

 

[TLWR]

Mine have nibbled at some of the things growing here, but they seem to spit them back out and move on. I can't say I've seen them actually eat any of what we have (and I have no idea of what weird things grow in this yard)

 

[Duck_feeder]

I give our ducks the generic white capped mushrooms you can find anywhere and enoki mushrooms that I get from an Asian grocery store (neighborhood or ethnic grocery stores are the best place to get cheap veggies!) I usually chop them up before I put it in their evening treats bowl.

I've been giving that to them for well over a year multiple times a week so if they'd have any problems it would have shown up long ago.

 

[The Duck ABC's]

Ducks have incredible taste butts. They will try everything and know pretty fast what they like. I'm never concerned with what they eat outside. Remember that plants that are toxic to us may not be toxic to them. So don't rely on charts you find on the Internet. I have seen plenty of them where they took what is bad for humans to be bad for ducks too.

 

[nettie]

ours love enoki mushrooms! We get them for cheap at the chinese grocery store!

 

[Lamar Estate]

Last summer I've become a zealous mushroom hunter (after taking a two day class, of course) and grower.

My ducks nibbled on some mushrooms and then moved on to tastier greens.

If you're going to grow mushrooms, I'd grow them indoors or somewhere out of their reach. I know how expensive it is to buy growing kits!

 

[Amiga]

Thanks, and bless you all for your responses!

I plan to grow some oyster and shiitake indoors, then try propagating them outdoors with stem butts. I also plan to interplant oyster spawn and veggies in raised beds, which will be fenced off from ducks once the plants sprout.

Your experience is reassuring.

Incidentally, all ten runners are doing fine - a few are feeling broody, I just let them cycle through that with wooden eggs. Still in the basement pen, which is working out really well. They can spend more time outdoors in their regular pen now the days are starting to warm up.

 

[Farmshe]

Just wanted to put this out there. I have 8 ducks, they root around on about 2 1/2 acres. I let them out every morning and count heads at night putting them back in their locked up cage at night. Beginning of summer I added 5 new ducks to make the 8 I had so 5 of them were young. Two were dark grey runners and some buffs. Last night I only counted 7 ducks. And 2 were acting very weird. I had to literally push them in their locked up area/ a dog run/. I went looking for the 8th duck. I found her, dead, laid out flat. Not twenty feet away was a wild mushroom that I could see they had nibbled on. The dead one was a dark gray runner, and the other two that were acting weird was a runner and one buff. I have had ducks for several years and we have 5 acres in the NW region of US. Never have I known a duck to eat mushrooms.. The 2 weirded out ones were fine this morning.
Now I am wondering if I should take up mushrooms when I see them. I don't know good ones from bad ones but some get unusually large. Anyone else see this??

 

[KaleIAm]

Oh no, I'm sorry to hear about your duck, Farmshe!

I live in the PNW and my cayuga hen enjoys eating wild mushrooms while foraging. It scares me so I call her to another area when I see it. My other ducks taste mushrooms and spit them out hastily.

 

[sheepgoatduck]

We had Rouen and Pekings dropping dead, no real visual damage. Ducks acted like they had a concussion, sleepy head droopy. Definitely something neurological. Act first we thought we had a genetically bad duck, then others died or came down sporadically with symptoms. Then we thought our geese were singling ones out and beating them up. Then ones acted up or died when the geese were locked up from free ranging. The ducks free range our 40 acres. Believe wild mushrooms are the culprit. Y'all say that you've never seen a duck like a mushroom? They act like it's crack, watched em mow down 5 huge ones. Must hit an occasional toxic one or ingest too much. Other suspected thing was millipedes....anything you pick up that is damp underneath has hundreds of them. And the chickens don't touch them at all, supposedly they are highly toxic. Pretty sure since I saw them on the shrooms that is what is causing our issues.