Ducks, like chickens, are omnivores. So what do ducks eat? Typically, ducks eat foraged food including weeds, seeds, grasses, slugs, and other pests. Ducks also eat natural, homemade feed or commercial feed. To know what ducks want and need to eat, look no further than a wetland in your local park.
There, in the early morning, you’ll be sure to see wood ducks and mallards dabbling in the shallows, waddling through tall grasses, or briefly diving below the water. These wild birds are able to totally satisfy their needs with the stuff that comes from the land itself.
If you look atwhat fills those wild ducks’ bellies, you’ll find insect larvae, worms, acorns, tadpoles, aquatic invertebrates, slugs, weeds, grass, sedges, and whatever seeds and grain they are able to find.
The good news is, domesticated ducks are pretty close to their wild cousins in terms of needs, and if allowed to follow their forage-inclined design, are quite easy to feed. The same grasses, bugs, and seeds eaten by wild ducks are just as nutritious and tasty to their domesticated counterparts.
“Under natural conditions, mallard-derived ducks satisfy 90 percent of their nutritional needs by eating vegetable matter; the remaining 10 percent comes from animal matter, such as mosquitoes, flies, and tadpoles” (Damerow, 92). Give ducks access to enough protected space, and feeding them could be as simple as offering them a handful of seeds in the evening to make sure they come back to their pen!
鸭子是宅地的一个奇妙的补充,提供丰富的粪便,超大的鸡蛋,美味的肉,和无尽的滑稽行为,它们居住的土地。如果你梦想着看着你自己的一群摇摇摆摆、嘎嘎叫着、可爱而笨拙的鸟儿在草地上蹒跚而行,那么你需要知道如何喂好它们。
What我应该喂我的鸭子吗?
首先,鸭子需要接触到大量的淡水,以及沙子和砂砾,以便处理它们吃下的任何食物。下面的所有建议都考虑到了这些因素。
Let Them Forage
为了鸭子的健康和快乐,最好的选择就是让它们尽情享用草料。这种选择不仅提供了所有平衡的矿物质,天然的钙来源,和营养,以保持鸭子的巅峰状态,但它有助于减少害虫的数量,你的家园。
Foraging also provides the ducks with mental stimulation and exercise. There are few sights more relaxing and endearing than a flock of ducks meandering through tall grass to play in the pond.
即使你没有无尽的土地,你仍然可以让你的鸭子吃这些最健康的食物!让鸭子在一个发达的花园中摇摇摆摆地走,可以清除不必要的杂草和害虫,而不会像鸡那样造成划伤。只要确保没有你希望保护的嫩苗或浆果——鸭子也会很高兴地吃这些东西。
Natural Feed
If you don’t have the space to allow ducks to forage all day, you can still offer them the benefit of fresh veggies and bugs. Grass clippings, acorns, and garden weeds fromunsprayedareas are fantastic for them—and there’s no way for them to overeat on greens. Ducks won’t eat wilted or dried greens, so floating leaves in water will both give them something to do and will make sure they don’t waste their food.
Watermelon rinds, vegetable scraps from cooking, any salad green, fruit peels, extra oatmeal, scrambled eggs (shells and all!), and even meat trimmings can all be a fantastic supplement to a duck’s diet.
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Whole grain seeds are also a great side dish for your ducks. Unlike pelleted food, they don’t spoil when they get wet or forgotten—they simply sprout into fantastic greens, which your ducks will happily chomp down.
As for the meaty element, minnows, crickets and meal worms can be easily procured at a pet shop or even grown on your own homestead. Some Muscovy keepers even hang cloth bags of stinky, rotten fruit in their ducks’ pen to attract flies—you wouldn’t believe how quickly they can snap them out of mid-air.
Commercial Feeds
Store-bought rations are an easy choice and can be found in three different forms—mash, pellets, and crumbles. In some areas, finding a dedicated waterfowl feed may be harder than you expect, so many homesteads opt for giving their birds chicken feed or simple all-purpose barnyard feed. Some homesteads even choose to feed their ducks dog food!
Choosing to feed your ducks pelleted feed is an easy and ready-made way to fill their stomachs. It’s not necessarily the cheapest, however, as ducks tend to waste quite a bit of food. Often, what doesn’t make it to their stomachs ends up fouling their water. Wet, uneaten food molds readily, giving rise to unwanted diseases likeaspergillosis.
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Additionally, homesteaders who want to keep agricultural poisons and genetically modified ingredients out of their diets (and their garden’s future fertilizer) will do well to track down the ingredients of bagged feeds, even if it takes some digging. The main ingredients listed are often corn, wheat, and soy byproducts, many of them absolutely certain to be GMO and pesticide-ridden, unless otherwise specified.
Special Consideration For Ducklings
小鸭子需要特别照顾。如果你研究一下鸭子健康饮食需要什么,你就会遇到烟酸或维生素B3的必要性的讨论。Without an ample supply, ducks, and ducklings, in particular, will suffer weak growth and may not be able to walk.
Conventional advice says to offer your ducklings brewer’s yeast with every feeding. That’s one way to make sure they get enough, but I’ll let you in on a not-so-secret secret.Peas, red clover, and pretty much any wild legume growing in your yard contains niacin. Fish and whole grains like millet also contain niacin. Those wild ducks know what they’re doing when their tearing up the “weeds” at the edges of the pond or chasing down minnows…they’re getting their vitamins!
如果你像我一样,正在寻找更自然的方式来给你的鸭子提供它们需要的东西,那么相信野鸭的设计,并找到一种方式让你的家鸭获得同样的好处。在你的鸭子的水碗里漂浮着小鱼,撕碎满手的新鲜三叶草和其他杂草的叶子,只要给鸭子足够的草料,就一定会给它们提供大量的必要矿物质和营养,而且是比简单的单独的维生素更好的形式。
What You Shouldn’t Feed Your Ducks
Keeping domestic ducks is a trusting relationship. In exchange for their flight and migratory freedom, farmyard ducks have put their trust in their keepers’ hands for providing for their needs. This means that knowing what NOT to offer ducks is just as important as knowing how to feed them.
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These foods are on the no-no list when it comes to keeping your birds healthy.
- Citrus fruits:They can interfere with shell hardness.
- Medicated chicken feed:Ducks require more food than chickens, and they can easily overdose. Additionally, ducks aren’t prone to many diseases, so the medication is unnecessary to begin with.
- Refined human junk food:Chips, cookies, cake, white-flour products, white rice, etc.You probably already know they’re bad for you—they’re just as junky for your birds.
- Lots of extra treats:Ducklings grow fast. Given too much high-protein, rich food, they may develop abnormalities likeangel wing.So no matter how cute their begging peeps may be, resist the urge to reward them with unnecessary food. If you must give them something, try a handful ofclover leaves—mine love nibbling them out of hand!
- Bread:I know many of us may have fond memories of going to our local park, bag of stale bread in hand. Though watching the ducks dash and dive after those white chunks of Wonderbread was fun,it wasn’t fun for the ducks’ digestive system. If you do find yourself with stale, whole-grain bread, a small amount certainly won’t kill your ducks—just consider it the same way you would a candy bar treat!
What I Feed My Ducks
I have kept both Muscovy and mallard-derived ducks (I currently have a flock of 11 Muscovy ducks, 10 of whom are still ducklings), and my approach has been on the naturally inclined end of the spectrum. I think of it in terms of “greens, grains, and grubs.”
The majority of my birds’ diets is foraged greens, largely the grasses, sedges, weeds, and legumes that cover our land. The rest of their food comes from the insects that they catch, selected kitchen scraps, birdseed, and meat.
The only supplemental feed we purchase for our waterfowl is mixed, whole-seed birdseed, which we offer on certain occasions. The meat that we offer them is a very occasional—yet much relished—element of their diet.
每当我们捕捉到捕食者时,比如一只吃了我们的珍珠鸡的浣熊或我们在谷仓里捕捉到的老鼠,我们就把它们切碎,装在有尺寸的袋子里冷冻起来。每一周左右,当我们碰巧吃到它的时候,我们就会提供这种高度浓缩的脂肪、蛋白质和器官矿物质来源。We have almost always noticed a growth spurt after our ducklings have had a meat feast!
The bottom line on our simple homestead is that I like letting my ducks be ducks, trying to give them the option of eating as natural a diet as their wild cousins do on the river. Though I’m currently foraging for our current ducklings, picking two 5-gallon buckets of tender weeds a day for them (a task that takes probably ten to fifteen minutes a bucket), they’ll soon be out doing it on their own!
一旦小鸭子长到足够大,他们就可以进入一个满是爬行动物的小池塘,满是虫子的田地,还有大量的杂草。这种方法需要像样的围栏,否则,你的邻居可能会变得有点太熟悉你的漫游水鸟。
They won’t languish in the winter, either. In our relatively snow-free corner of Missouri, our ducks have feasted on fallen acorns and the still-tender bases of grasses. We give them more birdseed in the winter than in the summer (mostly to make sure that they knew to stay near!). If your area is cloaked with snow in the winter, however, you may need to forgo foraging and give your ducks all the food their wild cousins migrate for.
Keeping ducks is a simply delightful element of homestead life. Whether you keep them for meat, eggs, or for the pure delight of watching them dabble in the pond, the quacking, feathery exploits of a flock of ducklings does something good for the heart. Just be sure to do that same good for the stomachs of your birds, and you’ll be sure to enjoy many seasons of life with your bemusing flock.
Resources
- The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals, edited by Gail Damerow
- 鸭子吃什么?What to Feed Your Backyard Ducks, The Free Range Life
- What To Feed Ducks, The Spruce
- 鸭子吃什么?, Countryside Daily
- 鸭子吃什么?How-To and Tips for Domestic and Wild Ducks, A Life Of Heritage
- 鸭子吃什么?不,不是面包片。Please Read This, BirdEden
- Feeding your Backyard Ducks, The Cape Coop
- Can Chickens & Ducks Share Feed?, Hobby Farms
- The Sure Fire Way to Raise Healthy Ducklings, A Life Of Heritage
- Feeding Ducks, Poultry Keeper
- Raising Ducks: A Primer on Duck Housing, Diet and Health, HGTV
Lauriesays
Hi,
I am a 1st time duck owner. We have 4 Pekin and 2 Appleyards. 2 Pekin and the Appleyards are a trip, but 2 of my Pekin have had some troubles. What we think is a female has the stumble like walk (are too fast) and it appears to be hard to move around. We have added Niacin to their water for the last 4 weeks. We carry her to swim and to sheltered places in the yard limiting her movement and sometime we leave her and her mate/ friend in stall.
Her friend has been fine until today. Sadly, moving him/her out of the barn yeasterday she/he flew out of my grasp and landed on her/his chest on the concrete about a 4ft fall. I immediately picked the duck up and and placed it in the pool to swim. He/she was Eating and moving around yesterday and didn’t seem to be a problem. Putting the ducks up this evening, clearly this duck is sore or injured or tired.
He/she is Still trying to preen some and did drink some water but not eating much and clearly appears to stand more than laying down. Could he/she be bruised? I checked on this couple again an hour ago. He/she looks like he/she is trying to sleep. This “not as strong” duo typically stays together as the other 4 are complete party ducks, faster, louder movers and shakers. They get their own stall.
I can keep this pair isolated for recovery and down time only making time for swim time for the next few days. Is this the recommended plan? I don’t want either to suffer. We took the first duck when hobbling badly to the vet. She received an anti inflammatory but was car sick all the way to the vet and all the way home. I felt terrible for her. I just want them to be comfortable and healthy. I don’t care if they are mover or shakers like the others. I really don’t want to put anyone down either. Avoiding another trip the vet would be ideal too expense and ultimately care for the duck.
First time duck and chicken raiser. I love them so!! They all bring me great joy.
Thank you,
Laurie
PS I appreciate your information provided. Nice site.
Wren Everettsays
Hello, Laurie! I’ll give your questions my best shot.
First, I would recommend checking the stumbling duck for bumblefoot–this is a wound on the bottom of the foot pad that gets infected, swells, and affects movement. Pekins are susceptible to it.
Also, prepare your first-timer-with-ducks heart for the fact that sometimes, there are just weak ducks. Whether they’re a runt, just have somewhat poor constitution, or some other reason that can’t be known–these are the ones that would be probably eaten in the wild or die of natural causes/ for no apparent reason. I’m not sounding the death knell for your duck, by the way–obviously, she’s not in the wild and has someone to dote on her ;). I had a weaker male that I literally carried up from the pond for an entire winter (he couldn’t make it on his own) now he’s a ridiculous bruiser who you would never know had a weak season. Life with birds is funny.
For the duck that you think is hurt, just let it rest for a day or so, and it will probably recover without issue (actually, should be fine by the time you read this). Sometime, after a traumatic moment, ducks just need to “take the day off.” Just let them recoup, provide lots of water, and don’t try to fix it so much that you make it more traumatic. Example: I once accidentally hit one of my ducks with a garden hoe (she REALLY wanted the worms, apparently, and I had no idea she was behind me). She was a stumbling, closed-eye mess for a day. She rested in the duck house, keeping herself very quiet. Two days later? Full recovery–you’d never know anything had happened.
最后,坦然接受这一切。总的来说,鸭子是非常耐寒和容易饲养的动物。许多兽医旅行是不必要的。不要因为烦恼和担心而失去这些动物的乐趣——只要尽你最大的努力让它们安全、干净、吃得好,并享受鸭子聚会。