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ducks and geese

Dried Fruit as Duck and goose Feed

Posts: 166

Location: Yucatan Puebla Ontario BC

posted 13 years ago

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I'm wondering if I could raise free range ducks/geese by feeding them dried fruit in the place of grain.

Has anyone tried this? Can grain be eliminated from their diet and replaced by fruit?

Diversified Food forest maker . Fill every niche and you'll have less weeds (the weeds are the crop too). Fruit, greens, wild harvest, and nuts as staple. Food processing and preservation are key to self self-sufficiency. Never eat a plant without posetive identification and/or consulting an expert.

John Polk

steward

Posts: 7926

Location: Currently in Lake Stevens, WA. Home in Spokane

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posted 13 years ago

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I don't know.

Geese are already infamous for turning an area into a 'slip 'n slide'. What would they do on a fruit diet?

Jeffrey Hodgins

Posts: 166

Location: Yucatan Puebla Ontario BC

posted 13 years ago

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I found this page about testing done with molasses and cane juice. The main idea is that feeding of these high sugar foods is best kept at around 30% of the duck's diet. I assume that pears would match up more or less with molasses if comparing the dry weight.
http://www.lrrd.org/lrrd4/3/viet5.htm

Kelly Smitherson

Posts: 46

posted 13 years ago

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geese or ducks? my geese graze, my ducks forage - fruit would be too high and rich and spendy a feed for mine in any bulk. Some fruits when dried can be toxic to livestock too
Mine do not get grain anyway though

Liz Hoxie

Posts: 249

Location: Ellisforde, WA

posted 8 years ago

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Interesting thread. Ours love fresh apples. The gander learned how to pick them off the tree in the neighbor's orchard last year. I hope he has forgotten how. He would give the first one to the goose, then pick another for himself. I don't think he was too happy when the pickers took "his" apples!

Liz

Maureen Atsali

pollinator

Posts: 454

Location: Western Kenya

posted 8 years ago

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My ducks get no grain. They free range, eating bugs and plants. Sometimes they get some random kitchen scraps. I think fruit would be a lot of sugar. I might feed it as a small percentage of the overall diet, but not a primary feed.

Maureen Atsali
Wrong Way Farm - Kenya

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