Safe weed killer around ducks?

[crashley]

Hi! In the past I've used a mix of vinegar, dish soap, and salt to kill weeds safely in my children's backyard playground. We now have ducks that love to nibble on weeds. Does anyone know if this is a safe weed killer for ducks to be around? I wouldn't have them around while I'm spraying but later on. Thanks!

 

[Amiga]

Hi, @crashley I have been thinking about your question and do not have a firm answer for you.

But I wanted to let you know I did read your post and am thinking about it.

I admit, I let my ducks do the weeding for me, and I consider "weeds" - at least the ones that are not noxious, to be free salad for the ducks (and sometimes, for me, as in the case of lamb's quarter and chickweed). Boiling water is a good weed killer, and doesn't leave any kind of residue behind. The salt and dish soap would concern me.

 

[Vosh Sahaal]

Fire. TSC sells control heads for propane canisters purpose built for it.

 

[Akalarz]

In the past I held an pesticide applicators license or at least had the certifications to obtain one in West Virginia, and several other states. All or just about all herbicides should be safe around any animal. Herbicides are specially designed to work on plant cells, many of them are in fact plan hormones designed to make plants grow so fast they die. There are other things that will kill plants that are bad for animals such as gasoline but if your using store bought herbicides there should be no problems, the only thing to watch out for would be if the herbicide is an eye irritant. Insecticides are a different story because they are designed to kill insects which do share some physical traits with birds and mammals. Make sure you when you buy the pesticide that it is only an Herbicide and not insecticide as well, I do not believe there should be any problem with fungicide either but I am not 100% on that. Good luck.

 

[Akalarz]

I would feel safer using Herbicides over dish soap around animals as detergents and soaps can cause problems with stomach linings and have other poisonous side effects. Also herbicides will be infinity more effective and you can specify different types of plant to target such as grasses, or woody stemmed plants.

 

[Amiga]

I would feel safer using Herbicides over dish soap around animals as detergents and soaps can cause problems with stomach linings and have other poisonous side effects. Also herbicides will be infinity more effective and you can specify different types of plant to target such as grasses, or woody stemmed plants.

I respectfully disagree about that, unless there is a specific herbicide you are referring to that I haven't heard of. Previously thought to be innocuous, glyphosate, for example, turns out to be causing digestive problems in livestock.

 

[Akalarz]

This is possible. I have not had any continuing education on the subject since 2008. I was taught we could drink them ourselves without consequence. It may the carrier or other additives which causes the digestive issues with live stock too.

 

[Amiga]

I, too, had been taught that as long as you chose the appropriate form with specific carriers designed for the environment - i.e. Roundup for drylands, Rodeo for wetland, all was well the stuff broke down within hours or at most, days, all was well.

Ahem.

Then we start seeing things like this. I must admit, though no one is flawless, I do pay attention with the National Institutes of Health publishes something.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945755/

So, I have modified my approach to - no modern poisons. Technically, vinegar is a poison when it is poured at sufficient strength on plants. Boiling water will kill anything it hits, but it does in fact lose its deadliness in minutes. Salt - that's one I am careful with because it's going into the soil where tree roots are as well as the more shallow herbaceous roots. I try to think things through. I end up doing a bit of pulling and pruning and experimenting with heavy mulch, etc. And in my experience (I once did mapping of invasive species for a large organization), these things don't come up all of a sudden. Some seeds get deposited, and no one notices for quite a while. That's when it's a problem. If I see garlic mustard at the edge of my place, I pull it up before it blooms. I don't have an invasion of garlic mustard.