Will muscovies, kept in the garden area, devour my garden?

[wesleyds]

I am considering getting some muscovies for tablefare. If they are kept inside the fenced garden will they eat the plants down to the nub or are my plants safe?

 

[Going Quackers]

Depends on the plants.. mine did not touch my tomato plants, ate the lettuce, ruined the broccoli, cauliflower.. the asparagus was fairly safe. A few of my flowers they did eat, so basically a crap shoot.. i would fence off anything of great importance.

 

[cosbackyard]

I wouldn't recommend keeping them in with your plants. What they don't eat they may very well trample with their big duck feet.
Mine hid inside the tomato and potato plants which did a little damage and they sat on my carrots. Overall not too bad but I only let them in there for short periods to do bug control.

 

[BC-NZ]

Mine totally demolished my zucchini plants and would have done the same to the Butternut Pumpkin, tomatoes, strawberries and capsicum if I hadn't fenced them off, they've also neatly trimmed the grapevine as far as they can reach and it's not as if they don't have enough grass and weeds around to eat as well as 24/7 supply of pallets!
We also feed free lettuce scraps from our local Fruit & Veggie shop as extra greens as often as we can and they just seem to be inhaled
They try anything but don't touch the citrus trees anymore

 

[wesleyds]

Well that kills my first idea. Back to the drawing board! I don't have to worry about citrus trees up here. It was -26f this morning when I got up. Thank you all for the responses.

 

[BC-NZ]

I was kind of going by what I'd read that ducks left your plants alone compared to Chickens and just ate the bugs, well that idea quickly vanished once I let them out to free range.... I see my Ducks trying to get into the garden more than my Chickens, they're more interested in scratching in the dirt.
The ducks keep the lawn well trimmed though

 

[cosbackyard]

The ducks keep the lawn well trimmed though

So do mine! I had no idea they would mow the lawn for me.