Shop vac for all the feathers?!

[ThePhoebeFive]

Okay, totally bizarre question:
What do y'all use to clean up all the duck feathers during molting? Or is it totally normal to not care?

I ask bc we live on two acres, my brother lives in a camper at the back, and the ducks are in the front. His main concern isn't even his yard it's bc he does our landscaping and he doesn't like that it makes our yard "ugly". I've had ducks for a year and a half and he's complained about the feathers a few times. Now, it's not his property and he knows he doesn't have much control over it so he usually comments and then leaves it alone. Well just now he kindly suggested I buy a shop vac to vacuum up the feathers. Sounds feasible in a way, but idk it's just part of having ducks and I don't have a job rn so I'm not spending money on a shop vac.

Any other cheap, reasonable ways of handling it? (I mean, I'm inclined to tell him to suck it up, but I figured I'd ask. )

 

[ThePhoebeFive]

Oh, also, I will give him this, we're talking white ducks. So it looks like it snowed.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

My husband thinks I should shop-vac poop out of the chicken coop. I don’t think it would work for feathers or poop

 

[FrostRanger]

I have chickens but the same would apply to ducks too, I just ignore it they'll decompose eventually. Vacuuming up feathers outside on the ground seems a bit much. If they are in the grass then they will also get mowed over which will further help with decomposition. Also the feathers will be good fertilizer

 

[ruthhope]

I currently have a white muscovy drake late in his molt and a black and white muscovy drake starting. I also have 2 pekin drakes that lose white feathers and down year round -- aided and abetted by muscovy drake biting them

My back yard always looks like a feather mattress has burst. I just ignore it -- I keep ducks!! However, I confess that I just collected a paper carrier bag of molted feathers -- from flight feathers to down -- for a neighbor who has a project teaching kids about Native American culture. Apparently, feathers attached to long canes are important!!

 

[Miss Lydia]

The only feather I pick up are the big flight feathers my goose and Muscovy drop when in molt all the rest just eventually vanish.

 

[Folly's place]

Feathers are either pretty, and may be picked up, or good fertilizer out there on the ground In the coop, they blend into the shavings, also fine.
Mary

 

[ThePhoebeFive]

thanks y'all! I'll tell my brother its good fertilizer. Maybe thatll help.

 

[Vicker]

Hand him a rake and show him the compost bin.

 

[FrostRanger]

Hand him a rake and show him the compost bin.

Indeed, if he's so bothered by it he can deal with it himself if he wants. If he's not so bothered to do it himself he must not be all that bothered by it