The internet is a liar...

[Vantic]

Ducks poop by their water. Put your ducks water in the garden beds in winter when your beds are fallow. They will sift through the beds collecting pests and pest eggs as well.

I over winter both the ducks and chickens in the garden, much poop all over the garden.

 

[Vantic]

My one older duck is a perfectly behaved lady that doesn’t destroy them. She may sample a tomato or 2 but she doesn’t strip plants. But I had the drakes using team work to pick pole beans... one would grab the corn stalk or leaf and pull as hard as he could, and the other 2 went to town once the beans were within reach. they broke one of the smaller stalks and I guess they discovered it works to pull on them from there.
The most frustrating was my jersey pulling down my entire pea trellis though. somehow stretching her scrawny neck over the electric fence and grabbing it. They all had a field day with that.

I put a short fence around the more worrisome plants, 2’ high with bamboo stakes and chicken wire. They can still pick through it but they can’t reach everything to strip it. Lol. And moved the electric fence back a foot or 2. Haha.

I like the fence idea, but that will make it harder to manage the garden (it is 80x100). I think the ducks will just have to rotationally graze with everyone else.

 

[ladybrasa]

To be honest I don’t really know much about ducks, but just assume if part of a bird’s diet is vegetation like chickens and ducks, you are gonna at least have some garden fatalities!

Also, at least with chickens, some people say their chooks won’t eat such and such, but others’ chooks will. Each individual/flock is different. For example, lavender is generally listed as not something chickens will eat, and this holds true fir mine (so far), but there are a few people here that have lavender-eating chickens.

Also chicken won’t eat some garden pests!!! Very disappointing. Not sure about ducks, but you may find this to be so.

As for your beans - like green beans? Based on my limited experience with chickens and veggies this year, maybe try some in hanging basket type arrangements where they can’t reach? Or select trailing varieties and set them up on a vertical trellis. Temporarily set up fencing (there’s cheap fence stakes out there, then add chicken wire or that plastic type fence/netting around them until they trail up high enough out of beak reach. The ducks might still strip the lower areas, but hopefully the beans will be tall enough for it not to matter much. I did this fairly successfully with corn and sunflowers- temp fenced off them until they were too tall and established for pecking and scratching chickens. One industrious hen figured out there were a few ears down at peck level, but they couldn’t reach any of the others.

 

[Trisseh]

I like the fence idea, but that will make it harder to manage the garden (it is 80x100). I think the ducks will just have to rotationally graze with everyone else.

That’s definitely a lot more space than I had to cover, but even then, I didn’t fence the entirety of it. Just those groups of plants that were more delicate/they were going after. but it definitely depends on your setup. It was easy enough for me to place temp fencing here and there that I could step over. Tree collars for pole beans, maybe? I’m not surprised they went after your brassicas, seem to be one of their favorites.
My ducks climbed all through and around the squash no problem, lol, and didn’t touch the carrots, tasted the tomatoes but didn’t like those, but they really have a thing for beans for some reason. And my salad garden that I had in an old mineral tub...
raise them up or cover them in some way I guess; not sure if the bird netting over the plants themselves would deter them, or at least slow them down... or like you said, rotational graze and don’t let them have access to your actively growing plants.

 

[ladybrasa]

Sorry, yeah, that’d be a lot of temporary fencing!!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Sorry, yeah, that’d be a lot of temporary fencing!!

Nice avatar!

 

[sourland]

I did read that Guinea fowl are good for gardens though, does anyone know if the internet was lying about that too?

Yep, it was.

 

[DuckinDonutsBensalem]

I am loving this post! I have my gardens in raised beds and in large pots. So far, my young ducks haven't figured out that they can just step up and in. They have tried to snack everything they can reach. Clearly, I am going to have to up my game next spring.