The Quack Shack

[Canadian Wind]

here’s an old video i made off the ducks when their yard was “plantain land”

I remember commenting on your Flock contest photo about the plantain!

Also, @WannaBeHillBilly has a lovely crop of it too at his place.

Did you know that you can use a crushed plantain leaf to alleviate insects stings and bites?

 

[Jenbirdee]

I remember commenting on your Flock contest photo about the plantain!

Also, @WannaBeHillBilly has a lovely crop of it too at his place.

Did you know that you can use a crushed plantain leaf to alleviate insects stings and bites?

absolutely. there are other areas of my yard that still have loads of plantain and i cut some and dry it to crush and make ointment. i have a bunch of it dried now, but I don’t have the other ingredients for the ointment yet in the meantime, we take a fresh leaf and crumble it and rub it on our skin. Sometimes I also tried eating the little seed pods and picked a whole bunch of them and fry them up., they’re not very delicious. They’re OK I guess so at least we know we can eat them if we have to. lol

 

[Canadian Wind]

It's a really useful plant! Another good one is Yarrow but I don't suggest eating it. It is awful!!!

 

[Jenbirdee]

It's a really useful plant! Another good one is Yarrow but I don't suggest eating it. It is awful!!!

lol i know ! I actually have some and I actually tried eating it You are so right

 

[Supercow]

It's a really useful plant! Another good one is Yarrow but I don't suggest eating it. It is awful!!!

Both plantain and yarrow are appreciated by our ducks when chopped up and served in water. In fact yarrow is known locally (mixed with cooked eggs) as the supreme food for raising young birds (chickens, ducks). Both are medicinal, yarrow for intestinal stuff (as suggested by its wicked bitterness) and as a general antiseptic, and plantain as I remember it is also good on open wounds.

 

[Canadian Wind]

Yarrow's bitter taste is due to it's astringency, which also helps with stopping bleeding.

 

[Supercow]

Yarrow is among the strong medicinal plants yes, all kinds of good effects. https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/herb/yarrow

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Rain water from the roof would be somewhat tricky, although not 100% impossible, because of the distance from the house to the duck kingdom.

However we do have a well, and it's about to become solar powered in the new season.

As to big, yes I understand the need for it but I probably don't have the room to go much over 4 x 4 or 5 x 5 m which is still very little for 16 ducks (half a cubic meter per duck, they can mess that up just to start their day) -- so yes I'm ready to replace the water often.

Since the water would be reincarnated as irrigation this is actually not entirely bad. I'm even thinking about a continuous slow inflow-outflow.

Do you have any strong feelings about duck weed? Not using weed for ducks (also an option I guess: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11799303 ) but rather this stuff https://www.rhs.org.uk/weeds/duckweed .

Well-water is fine! Usually more sustainable than rain-water, especially during droughts…
Having a well is one of my dreams! - Free water for the ducks and the garden. There is a well-head somewhere here on my property, but i have not found it. My neighbors tell me that all the wells were "destroyed" when city water was forced on the settlement three decades ago.

Ducks and weed - those must have been some laid back ducks!
Duckweed - ducks hate it and to prevent it from spreading all must of it be eaten as quickly as possible!
You can set up some kind of duckoponics, where you pump the dirty water from the duck-pond through a series of filtering basins where plants and duckweed grows. Then throw hands full into the pond as a snack. My flock eradicated even the cat-tails from my pond. Apparently ducks love to eat the tubers from cat-tails too. Is there anything ducks won't eat?

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

the only thing i’ve found that ducks don’t gobble up is plantains. however, chickens do and did last year. For several years, my duck pen was always green with plantains in spring summer and fall, until I had my chickens in with my ducks and all the green was gone. This year they are separated again. I really miss the plantains in the duck area. It helps with erosion. The ducks are on a slope.

You have strange ducks! - This summer the ducks dug up banana-peels from the compost pile and ate those…
Wait! - Do you mean plantains (cooking bananas) or plantago - the cover plant with the large green leafs?
Anyways, my ducks eat those too...

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

here’s an old video i made of the ducks when their yard was “plantain land”

Plantago! - Plantains are bananas for cooking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantago