Feeding Duckweed to Layers

[dheltzel]

When we bought our home as a foreclosure in Central Florida, the pond was overrun with duckweed. When I was reading up on how to eradicate it without destroying the ecosystem of our pond, I learned how great the stuff is!! I used to fill wheelbarrows full of it and dump it in. These pictures are old, before we had the fence up. The girls loved it, and all the bugs and occasional fish I would scoop up with it! It was great for the soil, but it made their poop green and very runny and pretty gross. We have since been able to get the pond under control. Fortunately, there is a pond behind us on vacant property covered with the stuff!! I still give them a scoop every once in awhile from there as a treat, but as with everything, I believe moderation is key.


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Just to let you know, that is not duckweed. It is Salvina, a larger and even more aggressive grower. It is great for removing excess nutrients from a body of water, but I would be cautious feeding it to anything. It is actually a fern and never flowers. If you google some pics of Duckweed (Lemna) and Salvina, you can see the difference.

 

[DmCrawlz]

No way!!! When we moved in I did a lot of research to find out what it was. I never came across any info on Salvinia. They look very similar. How did you know the difference?

I know ferns are edible, and I have put this in my fish tank before and my goldfish ate it, so I still feel comfortable putting it in the coop. Our chickens are over fed, so I think they would let alone if they knew it wasn't good for them.

Thanks for the life changing info. Glad you let me know before I started to try to sell it as duckweed

 

[dheltzel]

I have had a lot of aquariums in the past and duckweed was the scrouge I was always fighting. Salvinia was much easier to remove if it got overgrown in the tank, so I always kept a bit of that going, alongside a bunch of other species of floating plants. The leaves of Salvinia are many times larger than duckweed. Lots of fish eat duckweed, but not many will eat Salvinia. Goldfish are the pigs of the fish world, they will eat anything, but my tropical fish would starve before eating the leaves of salvinia (they did nibble the roots, sometimes to the point of killing the plant).

I can't imagine you will find much of a market for either plant, but I hope you can sell some. If it gets overgrown to the point of piling up, you should rake some out and feed or compost it, the remaining plants will grow better and look nicer if they have a bit of room to stretch out.

 

[jevanvelsor]

Do I need to have circulation in the duckweed kiddie pool?

 

[Chickeeaholic]

duckweed is typically 10-30% protein, 1-5% lipid, 20-25% crude fibre and 10-15% carbohydrate.
Proteins constitute 4.8% Lys, 2.7% Met + Cys, and 7.7% Phe + Tyr.

That’s the profile I can find for now but that is for human consumption.

 

[KudraFamilyFarms]

I sure wish you all would give me the secret to growing duckweed in abundance!! We live in Northern California and are currently raising tilapia in the backyard. They love duckweed and we have ordered it many times, put it in a seperate tank and waited for it to grow and it just turns yellow and dies off. Is there a secret to getting it going? The tank we put it in is part of the filtration system for the pond itself although we have also tried just putting it in a seperate tank not attached to the pond and it died even faster there. If we do get a good batch that seems to live it just does not grow fast enough to keep the fish fed with. Any ideas? On a side note, the chickens also love the food my husband buys to feed the fish! I have fed my hens duckweed and they loved it but only as a small part of their diet.
CJ

I wish I could tell you a secret to growing it here in South Carolina. It is almost invasive in our pond. I am trying to find ways to utilize it which is why I'm on this thread!