Ducks and food scraps?

[benjensen842]

How practical is it to feed ducks on table/vegetable scraps? I'm thinking about raising a couple of duck hens for eggs but have a small area. About how much square footage per bird is recommended to avoid claustrophobia/decent quality of life?

 

[TheDuckCrew]

they will need real duck food but veggies can be given as snacks. as for how much land, how much do you have? as long as they can walk around and explore quite a bit then they will probably be happy. i have one acre and they mostly stay in the front yard, they never go past our pool. but they have their favorite spots where they like to hang out.

 

[streemers]

i live on a normal city lot and my ducks hang in the back yard

 

[CindyS]

I dont know, it seems ducks do not appreciate table scraps like chickens! they do like bread though.

 

[Wifezilla]

I give mine veggie scraps. Their favorite treat is a handful of dry, high-protein, low carb cat food.

I have a small suburban lot and I have 4 ducks. They hang out in the back yard. They have a little pool for now but will have a pool come Spring. They do have a pen with a duck hutch they use at night, but they have free run of the back yard during the day.

 

[austinhart123]

ya they will enjoy treats just *!NO AVACADO!* ... its deadly to birds!!!

 

[RavenStorm]

Of all of my birds, each has preferences of what and how much scraps they will eat. Some of my chickens hate fresh fruit or veggies actually and refuse to eat them. Of my two ducks, my baby Booger is a PIG and eats anything in my hand and tries to eat it all. Her favorite though is sunflower seeds, spinach, lettuce, cooked waste grain from beer making, pumpkin seeds, carrot peels, and beet stems. Her buddy Squeaker is not as enthusiastic about scraps but she loves pumpkin rinds, apple peels, celery leaves, spinach, and stem scraps from a Chinese veggie we grow called tong how that is related to the chrysanthemum flower. I always give them their feed first in the day, wait a while after they have finished it, then I give them small amounts of whatever scraps I have at the time. I don't give them more until they finish their first batch. Then I give them their feed again ad lib while they forage because I want to make sure they get the right amount of nutrients.

 

[Wifezilla]

I just bought some Tong Ho seeds. Please tell me they are good...LOL

 

[RavenStorm]

Quote:
DELICIOUS!!! They actually have a light, floral taste to them that is combined with something more along the lines of spinach. My DBF is Chinese and this is his favorite veggie, the seeds we have are the progeny of plants his mother grew back in Taiwan and brought with her when she moved to the states. Too bad that this winter the cold snap killed off most of our plants of the last of our seeds so we aren't going to eat any this year, just collect the seeds and hope they grow next year

 

[fowlmood]

My ducks love table scraps. They have learned what the treat bucket looks like and actually come running up toward me waiting for me to throw stuff out on the ground. Of coure they are in a run with the chickens so maybe they eat the treats just because they want to get them before the chickens do I don't know.