What vegetables can I grow for my ducks?

What food can I grow for my ducks?
We raise both chickens and ducks on our homestead, and I have noticed, that chicken yolks are more yellow than the yolks our ducks produce. I am pretty sure, that it’s because I am having trouble figuring out what food to grow for them.
It’s easy with the chickens, since they eat pretty much anything.
Their diet, while supplemented with a standard feed, exists of whatever greens I have available depending on the season. Right now they are eating, cabbage, collard greens, the tops from radishes, beets, grass with seeds, herbs like mint, lettuce and even nettles. Later in the season they will eat,  grubs, sweet potato greens, fruits, pumpkins, collards, squash and all year round kitchen scraps.
The only thing I can find, that the my ducks will eat, are carrot tops.
What do you recommend I grow, for them to get a more variated diet?

My ducks like Napa cabbage. It seems to be soft enough they can "chew" it, which they can't manage with green head cabbage.

They will also eat lettuces, but most of those aren't all that high in nutrition.

If you want better yolks, I wonder if you broke up dandelion flower whether they'd eat them?

We soak wheat berries for a day and feed that to our ducks to help with their B-vitamins. I wonder if you can grow Flax seed in your climate, as that is recommended for chickens, so it might help ducks?

Jay Angler wrote:My ducks like Napa cabbage. It seems to be soft enough they can "chew" it, which they can't manage with green head cabbage.

They will also eat lettuces, but most of those aren't all that high in nutrition.

If you want better yolks, I wonder if you broke up dandelion flower whether they'd eat them?

We soak wheat berries for a day and feed that to our ducks to help with their B-vitamins. I wonder if you can grow Flax seed in your climate, as that is recommended for chickens, so it might help ducks?

They have a standard duck feed they eat, so vitamins are covered. I just want to give them more greens. I have been thinking about growing duckweed and dumping those in their pool (they have a large one), and maybe they will eat that. I actually grow more lettuce than we can eat, so I will try that. Dandelions don’t grow well here. I have tried it many times, and are trying again this year with a shade cloth. I wish I had knows about the Napa cabbages. I grew 70 pounds this year, but it has been processed. Maybe I can rehydrate some of what I freeze dried, and see if they like that.
Thank you so much for the help.

My ducks like campanula (an edible ornamental) and chicory, will have a nibble at lettuce, but otherwise they leave my vegetables alone, so they--unlike my chickens--get unsupervised free range through the garden frequently.  

So mine don't eat a lot of greens;  they keep the grass trimmed but I think they are much more motivated by bugs and slugs.  Maybe yours need more bugs?  

G Freden wrote:  Maybe yours need more bugs?  

I used to have a couple of friends who would collect the slugs from their gardens and bring them to my ducks. They didn't mind so much having to pick the slugs out of their gardens, when they went to a good cause. After just a couple of years of that, they'd reduced the problem to the point they didn't need to any more!

Our ducks love Asian greens. Especially giant mustard greens. Most Asian greens are easy to grow and have low day light requirements, meaning you grow many of them in partial shade. They also love onion greens, so we give them scallion tops when we can.

If you want rich, deep colored yolks, you can explore sprouting grains. We provide a third of their feed in the form of sprouts and that makes all the difference in the quality of their eggs. Especially in winter time.

E Sager wrote:Our ducks love Asian greens. Especially giant mustard greens. Most Asian greens are easy to grow and have low day light requirements, meaning you grow many of them in partial shade. They also love onion greens, so we give them scallion tops when we can.

If you want rich, deep colored yolks, you can explore sprouting grains. We provide a third of their feed in the form of sprouts and that makes all the difference in the quality of their eggs. Especially in winter time.

I actually already grow a lot of Asian greens, especially the giant mustard greens. They have self seeded all over my garden. I will also see if I can sprout some grains for them. Thank you for the advice

G Freden wrote:My ducks like campanula (an edible ornamental) and chicory, will have a nibble at lettuce, but otherwise they leave my vegetables alone, so they--unlike my chickens--get unsupervised free range through the garden frequently.  

So mine don't eat a lot of greens;  they keep the grass trimmed but I think they are much more motivated by bugs and slugs.  Maybe yours need more bugs?  

I actually grow a lot of chicory and dandelion greens. Didn’t know ducks likes them, so I gave them to the chickens. I have more, so I will definitely try that.
We can’t free range any of our livestock. We have too many predators since we live close to a national park.

Ducks, like chickens (and to some extent all birds, at least when laying and rearing young) are omnivores. The slug (and snail) suggestion above reflects my experience. Potato bugs are also a favorite. Logs and scrap wood laid on the ground in the run can encourage these fat and protein packets to congregate underneath. Turn it over to let the birds have at it.

I have also created exclusion areas in the run with a 4ft wide circle of fence, and spread seeds inside to grow greens. Then I move the fence ring to let them eat. I could let them eat it all and plant again, let them just eat tops to let them regrow, or move the fence ring to another spot. Multiple rings get rotated around to give the ground in the run a rest from traffic and manuring.

Sprouting wild bird seed has also worked well for me.