Permaculture Ducks

Vegetable gardeners know how hard it is to keep pest and bugs away from our gardens. The solution to the problem is, bring in the ducks! Ducks are omnivores, meaning they eat both plants and other animals. They will even eat the slugs that your chickens turn their bills up at. Bill Mollison put it perfectly he said "You don't have a slug problem, you have a duck deficiency."

Ducks will need no encouragement from you to forage and find what they like. Certain breeds are better foragers than others, but all ducks like to forage and look for tasty snacks. I would not recommend allowing your ducks into your garden without supervision, and again certain breeds are better suited for gardening tasks. They like veggies almost as much as bugs so keep an eye on those quackers if you allow them into the garden. Instead of allowing them right into the garden you could rotate them around the boarder of your garden or run them through the aisle of the garden with a light weight fence that is easy for you to move. This will still help to control the insect population in the general area. Another neat trick, if you have slug infestation, is to lay out wooden boards between your rows in the evening. Then in the morning when the sun starts to come up the slugs will go under the board for protection. Then you just simply bring in your ducks, flip up the boards, and you've served them a slimy breakfast!

If you have raised garden beds it could be the perfect combination for you, most ducks do not fly and while they can jump I wouldn't consider them to be jumpers. They will be able to reach in and get pests but not able to reach the fruiting part of the plants. Just make sure not to plant too close to the edge or they might get the stalks of the plants. Ducks paired with geese would also be great at knocking down an overgrown patch of grass amongst the trees, in raspberry patches, or orchards. Ducks are grazers as well, just make sure you have fresh water available for them. Ducks wash their food down with water, they do not have a true crop like a chicken does.

Ducks should have water to bath in, to keep their feathers in optimal condition, but this shouldn't be viewed as a problem. Duck pool water is an easy source of nitrogen. In the spring, all plants like a nitrogen boost so grab yourself a cheap pump that a garden hose can attach to or create a syphon system so that you can easily give your garden a nitrogen boost! This can be as small as a kiddy pools or as large as a pond, that you can pump water from to your gardens. Ducks can also seal ponds but that's another blog.

Ducks will also need a shelter, feed, and a clean water source deep enough to dunk their heads in throughout the year. They will provide you with a pest free environment, eggs, and can be harvested for meat as well. Another benefit from them is their waste, their manure is not 'hot', meaning it doesn't need to sit and mature for months and months it can be used right away. They will be leaving nitrogen rich pockets of soil wherever they are kept and you can harvest their bedding for your compost or use it directly into the garden plots as mulch. In the warm months, as long as your birds are being moved around, you will have to provide them with very minimal feed. It is suggested, in permaculture books that you only give some feed at night to get them back into their coop and allow them to forage all day. We do not feed in our coops, but you could place feed out in the evenings. We just train our ducklings and goslings when young to go back to their coops at dusk.

Waterfowl will start doing what is natural to them as soon as you put them on the land, they are a very hands-off type of livestock and work hard. Between their hard working demeanors, all they can help you with, all they provide for you, with only a small addition to you feed bill they might be a key player missing on your permaculture homestead! Waterfowl are a must have on our homestead, they are easy to raise, low needs when it comes to housing, hardy to our cold Canadian winters, fantastic workers, good producers of eggs and meat, and their antics will be sure to keep you entertained.