What % of diet is grass for free range ducks?
- Thread starter Tai-tai
- Start date
Not certain, but I don't think my chickens eat that much grass. Maybe taller grass with seeds. I don't truly free range, but I let them have access to my whole backyard which is something like 60'x100'. It's mostly grass except for my garden patch, which is fenced in, and my koi pond, also fenced in.
My ducks don't eat grass 
but they love dandelions!
but they love dandelions!
The Dapper Duck
Songster
I'm trying to do as much perusing through the logs for information as I can and I found this thread didn't really have an answer. But I am interested to know! Maybe @Miss Lydia can chime in since I read you've posted about Muscovy nutrition before (can't remember what thread).
For what it's worth, at our current place, I let my Muscovies pasture on our lawn and they prefer grass and nothing else really. Unless they find a way into the garden. I feed a few lbs of game bird feed once every other day or so. We feed duck layer every day during the laying season now. I got my flock in increments, so bear with me for the full story because I think it's relevant.
First three hens were all raised in a coop and thought only pellets were edible. A little time and slowly reducing their feed got them grazing a bit. Next two hens had been pastured their whole lives, eating mostly in the median of a divided highway. Those girls were young but our yard had a lot of grass and they made good use of it and grew to a healthy weight, and even passed on some foraging behaviors to the older hens.
There was so much grass for the five birds that I still had to mow the yard. So I got 4 more young birds that were siblings; 1 drake and 3 hens (one of the previous 5 got killed by a raccoon just before this). So I had 8 Muscovy ducks on a 100'x100' yard. They sure kept the grass down, but my mistake was assuming the new drake and hens would grow up happy and healthy like the last batch. I was quite wrong. They had enough grass but they were being excluded from the food, even the drake somewhat. So now they are adults and a bit on the slim side compared to the other 4. One of them died in a freak cold snap (it rarely gets below 30F at night in the winter but that was the daytime high!) and I think her body condition had something to do with it. That and she got herself isolated from the rest of the flock.
Anyway, all that to say in my experience you can raise Muscovies on close to 85% pasture (total stab at the percentage), but I think supplementing with some high protein is important. When they are growing they need duck grower as their main source of food. Spread the feedings out so they are forced to explore what greens are edible, but make sure they are putting on weight. Once they are adults I haven't had any problems with having hens lay well on mostly pasture. I should also note that my first experience with Muscovies was in the tropics and they received 0% feed from me, however, there was an insane slug population and I did split coconuts for them so they were getting fat and protein in other ways.
Enough of my Muscovy tales. I hope this thread gets revived a little and other pastured Muscovy owners can chime in.
For what it's worth, at our current place, I let my Muscovies pasture on our lawn and they prefer grass and nothing else really. Unless they find a way into the garden. I feed a few lbs of game bird feed once every other day or so. We feed duck layer every day during the laying season now. I got my flock in increments, so bear with me for the full story because I think it's relevant.
First three hens were all raised in a coop and thought only pellets were edible. A little time and slowly reducing their feed got them grazing a bit. Next two hens had been pastured their whole lives, eating mostly in the median of a divided highway. Those girls were young but our yard had a lot of grass and they made good use of it and grew to a healthy weight, and even passed on some foraging behaviors to the older hens.
There was so much grass for the five birds that I still had to mow the yard. So I got 4 more young birds that were siblings; 1 drake and 3 hens (one of the previous 5 got killed by a raccoon just before this). So I had 8 Muscovy ducks on a 100'x100' yard. They sure kept the grass down, but my mistake was assuming the new drake and hens would grow up happy and healthy like the last batch. I was quite wrong. They had enough grass but they were being excluded from the food, even the drake somewhat. So now they are adults and a bit on the slim side compared to the other 4. One of them died in a freak cold snap (it rarely gets below 30F at night in the winter but that was the daytime high!) and I think her body condition had something to do with it. That and she got herself isolated from the rest of the flock.
Anyway, all that to say in my experience you can raise Muscovies on close to 85% pasture (total stab at the percentage), but I think supplementing with some high protein is important. When they are growing they need duck grower as their main source of food. Spread the feedings out so they are forced to explore what greens are edible, but make sure they are putting on weight. Once they are adults I haven't had any problems with having hens lay well on mostly pasture. I should also note that my first experience with Muscovies was in the tropics and they received 0% feed from me, however, there was an insane slug population and I did split coconuts for them so they were getting fat and protein in other ways.
Enough of my Muscovy tales. I hope this thread gets revived a little and other pastured Muscovy owners can chime in.
I can’t imagine just raising my Muscovys on pasture mainly because they love protein and need it to be healthy. I might be wrong but geese are the only grazers I know of . In domestic water fowl That said my Muscovys do love greens but I think they would thrive in the protein they get from bugs worms etc. they don’t call them mosquito ducks for nothing lol. But then again I have always feed my ducks feed formulated for poultry. Plus what they can get off the land in spring thru fall. We don’t have pasture. Just rocky mountain land.
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