what sorts of ducks for slug control?

another thread was dealing with chickens  but I wanted to ask about ducks after this (partial) quote

Kathleen Sanderson wrote:


All that said, I like my ducks of unknown breed!  Good layers and good temperament, and duck eggs are a lot more nutritious than chicken eggs!  Plus they lay all their eggs early in the morning....They don't fly over fences, they eat slugs, and they can be herded (once they are used to it).  Just try herding chickens, LOL!

Kathleen

Do ducks have to be trained to eat slugs and how old do they have to be to start?  I just returned after being away for a week and found EVERY cob of corn hosting a slug in the tip and slugs on the zucchini the rhubarb ...on everything!  ..it's a slug infestation and very depressing. Every three inches of soil has a slug  it seems.  We have had a lot of rain here the last couple of weeks but still.  The garden this year is a write-off and I want to get a handle on what to do before next year.  I am not about to start cutting them in half and trying to train chickens to eat them , there already ARE crushed eggshells around the plants and in the soil. I'd rather have something eat them than have to deal with drowned slugs every day. It was so depressing today I was even thinking of "to hell with the soil, where's the salt?" (didn't tho)

what sorts of mixed breed ducks do you have? I know muscovies will eat flies like crazy but   slugs?  It's really hard to see what possible benefit the slimy creatures provide...and I want them GONE..

In all permaculture litterature, i've read that the duck that is the most carnivorous is the indian runner, and kakhi cambells too. (there are excellent layers btw).

Thus I plan to buy those breeds

All ducks will eat slugs.  If you have the huge banana slugs of the West Coast, you would want a large-breed duck, but other than that, breed doesn't matter too much as far as eating slugs goes. 

Some breeds of ducks are more active and thus better foragers than others.  The large meat breeds would be among the less active breeds (Pekin, Aylesbury, Rouen).  But even these, if you wanted to raise ducks for meat, would do the job. 

In The Resilient Gardener, Carol Deppe has a chapter on ducks.  She prefers Anconas, which are a dual-purpose breed that lays very well.  She said that most of the other breeds follow the drakes (the drakes are the flock leaders), and what the drakes want to do first thing in the morning is mate, so the early foraging time, when some pests are most active, is wasted in mating activity.  But the Anconas follow a female leader.  Her priority is to get out there first thing and eat, so they catch more of the pests before the sun comes up and chases them into hiding.  The Anconas are also less nervous than the smaller laying breeds such as Runners and Khaki Campbells.

Carol Deppe also had an interesting comment about slugs -- she said they prefer duck poop over garden vegetables, so if you have the ducks penned near the garden, the slugs will migrate to the duck pen to eat duck poop (and be eaten by the ducks), leaving your garden alone.  I don't know how fool-proof this is, haven't tried it myself (we actually have very few slugs here, being on the dry side of the Cascade Mountains). 

I don't know what breed my mixed-breed ducks are.  I wish I did.  But the lady I got them from knew nothing about ducks at all (didn't even know how to tell the males from the females).  She had gotten them from a neighbor who didn't want them anymore, and didn't get any information from the neighbor.  I'm guessing that they might have some Khaki Campbell in them, possibly crossed with Blue Swede or Rouen, but who knows!?!  They are very good layers so far -- they had just started laying about the time I got them.  They are not as nervous as the one Khaki Campbell in the group (this is a good thing), and are considerably larger than that one, too.  Right now I have the nine ducks in three chicken tractors, so can't really tell what their early-morning foraging behavior is, but I would like to hatch some babies from the mixed-breed ducks next year and see what I get.  There is one pair of two-year-old domestic Mallards in the group -- hopefully, the duck of that pair will go broody next year.  I think she's more likely to go broody than the more 'developed' breeds, and I don't have any Muscovies to do the job.

Kathleen

My neighbor has Magpie ducks.  They are a heritage breed along the same lines as the Ancona.  They forage way better than my three large breed ducks who mostly want to hang out in my flowers and the water trough.  They cover my (3-4 acre) field and their own (3 acre) every morning.  I'm seriously considering switching (currently have chickens and those 3 fatties) the only thing I haven't decided is whether to get Magpies as well, or Anconas so I can tell the difference between mine and hers since we can't seem to confine them to their own space.

Also, mine had to be encouraged to eat slugs in the beginning.  I'm sure they would have figured it out on their own, but I was impatient.  If you get ducklings, I would suggest bringing them "goodies" (bugs, slugs, weeds) before they are big enough to be turned out.  The best foragers though, in my experience, are the ones (chicken or duck) that are raised by their mother and are all but feral.

Well I've just plumped for Indian Runners after many months of researching and asking questions.  I got two adults two weeks ago and have 8 eggs to go in the incubator so I can't talk from experience yet.  A great permaculturist, Emilia Hazelip, had Runners as they were "reputed to be the best slug predators".

A friend has Muscovies and she says they're "damn lazy".

The two we have are very timid but the lady that I got the eggs from said that it's different if you raise them from ducklings.  I hope so because I want to herd them like the geese to where I'd like them to 'work' and the current two are a law unto themselves.

Muscovies are not lazy at all... the problem is probably over feeding. This could be the problem with any duck.

If there is food out there, don't feed them anything until it's bed time for them (this way they come home and go inside when you want them to.) Give them as much as they will eat at once.

Doesn't need to be good food either... I raised buckeyes, muscovies, those beetle green black ducks and geese on nothing but soaked oats in the evening, after they had their adult feathers. The ducks grow great, but actually so did the chooks, I think I quit feeding mash when they were 2 or 3 pounds and the rooster grew to 8 or 9 pounds!

If you want good foraging birds you just can't spoil them with an endless supply of feed... you may be punished for this with a smaller, yet higher quality supply of eggs.

The 'beetle green black' ducks are Cayugas. 

There are Buckeye chickens, but I've never heard of Buckeye ducks? 

Kathleen

EmileSpecies wrote:

Doesn't need to be good food either... I raised buckeyes, muscovies, those beetle green black ducks and geese on nothing but soaked oats in the evening, after they had their adult feathers. The ducks grow great, but actually so did the chooks, I think I quit feeding mash when they were 2 or 3 pounds and the rooster grew to 8 or 9 pounds!

totally out of curiosity because I hear this sort of thing alot....where do folks get organic oats and other grains so cheap???  I get a organic formulated feed for around  55 cents/ lb    but I cant find organic oats, millet etc etc  anywhere for less than twice that  so it would cost me way more to feed oats than to just feed the diet with probiotics, vitamins etc in it already...

I  totally agree that muscovy are not lazy and just feeding at lock up works great.

Huh, at the local agway it's like 16 bucks for barley, 20 or more for any formulated stuff.

I used to buy just regular oats. Sometimes if you get a magazine like "country folks" you can get it strait from the farmer. You never know what a farmer uses, but a lot of those who grow oats or barley aren't going to be as chemical oriented as those who grow corn and soy.

Sometimes you can get a good deal buying strait from the organic farmer on whole grains... 50 cents a pound is an extraordinary price, you may be right that it's better to buy that, but it depends on the quality of the forage you have access to, the soy might be needed for high production, I prefer to soak or sprout all of my grains though.

I don't need soy for protein anymore because I soak all my duck's feed in sour milk and skim milk.

Don't forget about duck weed, great protein supplement.

yeah they have tons of forage and the feed is soy free.........i pay 29 for a 50lb bag........hmmm local oat farmer might be a good option. 

organick wrote:
yeah they have tons of forage and the feed is soy free.........i pay 29 for a 50lb bag........hmmm local oat farmer might be a good option.   

Whole corn is said to be better in the winter time as it helps fire up their guts to warm their little boddies up! Oats increase their dietary fiber and I believe this may lesson the amount of nutrients they get out of the oats. I think it takes a bit of the energy to process the fiber.

Many kinds of ducks are useful for slug control.  Here's how my duck flocks manage the slug population on a 3 acre homestead on the edge of the wilderness.  Actually have 10 acres but only utilizing 3 mainly for crop/animals.

Each evening, I feed my Muscovy, Silver Appleyard and Welsh Harlequin ducks a measured amount of feed, that experience has shown they will clean up in about fifteen minutes and so go to bed with full stomachs.

In the am(in Sept. that's around 7 am) the flocks are released into the surrounding acre of perennial and vegetable gardens.  Since they are very hungry they move all over the area, searching for insects and slugs plus eating a lot of grass, weeds and the leaves of kale, chard etc.

Between 9-10 am all flocks including chickens are herded into large grassed orchard paddocks for the day and given another measured amount of feed. Call this the 'hearty breakfast'

A few hours later, everyone is again quite hungry so this is the period where they get all manner of weeds, cut zucchini, and special connoctations that I whiz in the blender from a myriad of sources or pots of cooked potatoes mixed with goat's milk or yeast or organic grain.


Call this 'lunch'.  A few hours everybody is again pretty hungry and are released from the paddocks to the veg and perennial gardens where they again go foraging for what they can find.

My reasons for not letting them forage all day is I'm trying to maintain high levels of nutrition for both maximum health, egg, meat production and breeding. Plus to minimize the dammage that chickens especially can wreck on perennials and vegetable crops.  Also my area has a wealth of predators, all types.  The paddocks both have buildings or shelters for birds to nip into and the leafy canopy of the orchard helps minimize air strikes from eagles.

A hard working border collie runs the fence lines all day which also keeps the birds in and the predators out!

wildwood wrote:
Plus to minimize the dammage that chickens especially can wreck on perennials and vegetable crops. 

Wildwood, thanks for this. Yes I agree with you about the damage - my veg garden no longer welcomes the chickens and the herb garden has to have a net 'fence' around it. Very annoying.  But after your post, maybe I'll herd them a bit more.

A couple of questions (since you are cropping an area roughly similar to ours)...
1. how many chickens do you have and how many of each breed of duck?
2. do the ducks cross-breed?

1. how many chickens do you have and how many of each breed of duck?
2. do the ducks cross-breed?


Answers:1. 20 PB Rhode Island Red chickens, 5 Muscovy, 8 Silver Appleyard and 5 Welsh Harlequins.
Have raised Muscovies for 30 years, however just downsized my flock.
Tried to breed Silver Appleyards for six years and getting nowhere fast. The Welsh Harlequins were just given to me last week by a friend who is trying to get the breed going in our area.

2: The Muscovies and Silver Appleyards maintain distinct distance between the flocks.  Males do not even try to breed the other variety.
It seems possible that the Welsh Harlequins could breed with the Silver Appleyards.  Hybrids from those two varieties would likely be fine, given the characteristics of both duck varieties.

Since I'm new to these forums, what kind of chickens and ducks do you have, Alison?

wildwood wrote:

Tried to breed Silver Appleyards for six years and getting nowhere fast.

I had been looking at the Silver Appleyard  ducks and was intrigued by what little I had found out.  So this is a bit of an unpleasant surprise..what's the problem?

It seems that Pilgrim geese (another breed I was interested in because they are "color coded" for gender) have a very low rate both of lay and of live hatch compared to other breeds of geese ..is this the same sort of thing? Drat!

Pam, my experience with breeding Silver Appleyards might be due more to my inability to obtain more unrelated ducks than the breed itself.

I started with an urelated breeding pair and was unable to obtain more stock as the birds are rare in my area.  Although I could have obtained more ducklings going the distant hatchery route. So perhaps I am more at fault in this way.

However in my experience, few the females went broody at all. When they did, they did not sit properly.  If they did manage to hatch out a few ducklings, they weren't good mothers.  So ultimately, I incubated dozens of eggs the next four years.  In this practice, the ducklings that hatched had a good survival rate but over the same time period, the fertility of the eggs declined almost completely.  So I suspect another underlying problem.  Sometimes I was heard to mutter, darkly, "NO wonder, you're an endangered species."

Compared to the Muscovy experience which was always excellent, this breeding performance did not compare.

The upside of my experience, is the breed were slug foragers par excellence. They, literally 'swam' as a flock with their beaks through the grass and gardens, rustling every blade and leaf to find their prey.
Sowbugs, flying ants, moth, flies...too.

I never tired of watching them or admiring their lovely plumage.  And they were prolific egg layers for seven months of the year.

wildwood wrote:
Since I'm new to these forums, what kind of chickens and ducks do you have, Alison?

Pah, nothing out of the ordinary really.
8 hens - 2 Marans, 1 Light Sussex, 2 Andalouse, 2 Loue and one funny hybrid Maran. Geese - 6 Embdens.
Ducks - 2 Indian Runners and 9 in the incubator 

I'd been interested in the Welsh Harlequins but it was hard to find the ducks or their eggs here in France.  Muscovies are everywhere here but folk said they weren't especially good egg layers and that's our main interest along with slug patrols.

Alison Freeth-Thomas wrote:
Pah, nothing out of the ordinary really.
8 hens - 2 Marans, 1 Light Sussex, 2 Andalouse, 2 Loue and one funny hybrid Maran. Geese - 6 Embdens.
Ducks - 2 Indian Runners and 9 in the incubator 

I'd been interested in the Welsh Harlequins but it was hard to find the ducks or their eggs here in France.  Muscovies are everywhere here but folk said they weren't especially good egg layers and that's our main interest along with slug patrols.

sure wildwood could answer this better but from what I read the issue with muscovy is they want to sit on everything and if you take all the eggs they think predator and search for new nesting sites....SO maybe they would lay better if not sitting 70 days a year??

My Muscovy experience here on the B.C. west coast in Canada is that the hens generally start laying in January and lay an egg each almost until August/September.  Unless they go broody which usually on my farm happened June-August.  Although this spring everyone broke the pattern and wanted to sit, starting in April.

They have preferred daily laying spots in the coops however when the muscovies really decide to sit, it could be almost anywhere.  If there's not the usual amount of eggs in the usual spots, I go on an egg hunt.

If they are determined to sit, in an unsecure location, I always move them to a secure one.  If there is a large clutch of eggs, and I don't want more ducklings, I remove most of the eggs and just mark a few so that if the hen lays more or other birds share the nest, I know which ones are freshly laid.  Alternately place a few golf-balls in the nest and remove all eggs.  One gal sat on those two golfballs for nearly three months this year!  However that incident thankfully, was unusual.

wildwood wrote:
My Muscovy experience here on the B.C. west coast in Canada is that the hens generally start laying in January and lay an egg each almost until August/September.  Unless they go broody which usually on my farm happened June-August.  Although this spring everyone broke the pattern and wanted to sit, starting in April.

They have preferred daily laying spots in the coops however when the muscovies really decide to sit, it could be almost anywhere.  If there's not the usual amount of eggs in the usual spots, I go on an egg hunt.

If they are determined to sit, in an unsecure location, I always move them to a secure one.  If there is a large clutch of eggs, and I don't want more ducklings, I remove most of the eggs and just mark a few so that if the hen lays more or other birds share the nest, I know which ones are freshly laid.  Alternately place a few golf-balls in the nest and remove all eggs.  One gal sat on those two golfballs for nearly three months this year!  However that incident thankfully, was unusual.

It's kind of mean to kick a duck off of her nest, but isn't also kind of mean to let her sit on golfballs lol?

so wildwood you actually raise Muscovy for the purpose of eggs?  I have never heard of anyone doing that before......I really like my muscovy and would get more but I want something for eggs and I was under the impression muscovy are not the way to go???  thanks for all your info on them

organick wrote:
so wildwood you actually raise Muscovy for the purpose of eggs?  I have never heard of anyone doing that before......I really like my muscovy and would get more but I want something for eggs and I was under the impression muscovy are not the way to go???  thanks for all your info on them

If quality is what you want, then I think muscovy eggs are tops!

It's interesting that so many duck websites say that Muscovies lay few eggs and then go broody.  Like mentioned in my previous post, I've generally had quite good egg production for at least six months a year from my Muscovies, before they go broody. 

I sell Muscovy eggs but also the young drakes for meat. The boys weigh  45% more by butchering time at around 12 weeks than the girls. The females always manage to get sold as breeding stock.

Not that Muscovies can compete with egg producing breeds like the Khaki Campbell for eggs but I've been very pleased with everything about them for years. 

Muscovy eggs are what I call, an egg for the duck egg lover.

Thick yolk, thick white that whips up beautifully and a hard shell that needs a good knock.  In comparison, the Silver Appleyard ducks produce a large oval white egg with a shell similiar to a white chicken egg. The Welsh Harlequin's egg is also white but rounder and similiar in my opinion, to a chicken egg. Have never eaten any other duck eggs so can't speak to what they are like.

Wildwood, where is your farm? I would actually possibly be interested in acquiring a drake or two if not some hens as well.

I have a small flock of scovies with the "white head" gene, however they came from one pair I own, I don't want to inbreed. Was hoping to get a brown drake.

I live on the west coast of B.C. Canada.

And have long selectively bred white Muscovies.

However I think that the browns and blacks are beautifully plumed.  Now that am getting out of my several backyard breeding projects, for vigor and production, maybe will select more for color.

wildwood wrote:
I live on the west coast of B.C. Canada.

And have long selectively bred white Muscovies.

However I think that the browns and blacks are beautifully plumed.  Now that am getting out of my several backyard breeding projects, for vigor and production, maybe will select more for color.

Do you select for egg production? How would you go about doing that?

I have tried on about four previous occassions to get video of ducks or geese eating slugs, but the video always turned out iffy: you couldn't quite see it. Or the ducks/geese go squeemish - so they were so far away you couldn't see them eat the slugs in the video.

I kept trying and eventually ended up with this excellent video footage.

First we hear from Jen Davis, of Portland, Oregon. This is just a tiny bit that she had to say about controlling slugs. She expresses that she doesn't like to kill slugs without purpose. Having the ducks eat the slugs makes her much more comfortable. She talks about how her chickens weren't all that interested in eating slugs. With her current ducks, they eat so many slugs, that she now breeds slugs to feed to her ducks!

Samantha from Woodinville, Washington feeds HUGE slugs to her ducks. We get really good video of the ducks eating the slugs out of her hand.

We have Pekin ducks and they do an excellent job of slug patrol. We have had others and they also did fine.

We have a range of ducks, Indian Runners, Blue Swedish and Black East Indian. They are all good for slug control. If it were for a smaller area then I would go for the East Indies as they are small and their feet are less likely to turn everything to mud. I've found the Indian Runners to be very nervous and less easy to move where I want them. The Blue Swedish are good if you want a dual purpose bird as you get a good meat carcass from them and round here are also good for selling breeding stock as they are quite rare.

Wow Kate - I googled those Black East Indian ducks and they're GORGEOUS. The Blue Swedish are quite like the French Du Clair I think. We have Indian Runners and I agree with you about them being skittish, except little Toots who we raised by hand as an only hatchling from a group of incubated eggs. She follows us around everywhere. We also have two Mucovies and they'll do anything for food - waddle about all over the place hoping that we'll come out with some crumbs. The Indian Runners are always guttering about in the long grass though so I'd say that they're the better of the two varieties that we have for foraging.

Alison Freeth-Thomas wrote:Wow Kate - I googled those Black East Indian ducks and they're GORGEOUS.

Yes they are very cute - my excuse was that my 4 year old has his own hens so my 1 year old needed his own ducks

Walter Jeffries wrote:We have Pekin ducks and they do an excellent job of slug patrol. We have had others and they also did fine.

Walter, are you raising them for meat or eggs? I am interested in raising them for meat, but it seems complicated since everything Im reading says that you have to take the eggs from the duck and hatch them via broody hen or hatching chamber, and then keep them in a brooding chamber for 2-3 more weeks! Seems crazy. Why cant we just let mother nature do her thing and be happy with the results? Do you have any insight on this? I would really like ot keep a drake and 2 females, then use their offspring for meat so I only have to keep a few ducks over winter. Any advice?

They're quite good at hatching the eggs themselves. You don't need to do that during the warm weather. We actually aren't raising them for meat or eggs. Rather we keep ducks for their organic pest control and weeding ability as well as having them clean and aerate our ponds. We have many small ponds for our livestock. The ducks keep them stirred up which is good.

Another bird to consider is geese. They are quite prolific and hardy.

Hi Rob, I'm not Walter, but my experience with Muscovies is that they are *excellent* mothers, and if you are just raising them for your own needs, there is no reason at all for artificial incubation. The advice you are reading is for commercial production - if you take their clutches away, they will lay again and again and again...

Since each duck will set a clutch of (usually) a dozen or more in early spring, and, with a little protection from predators, raise all of them, and then start all over again in mid-summer, unless you have an unusually large and carnivorous family, three or four ducks and a drake will easily produce as much Muscovy meat as you'd like.

BTW, in my experience, at least three ducks for a drake is better than two. A full-grown drake is nearly twice as large as a duck, and like all drakes can be a bit obsessive. It's easier on the ducks if they are sharing those attentions with more than one other.

jacque greenleaf wrote:In my experience, at least three ducks for a drake is better than two. A full-grown drake is nearly twice as large as a duck, and like all drakes can be a bit obsessive. It's easier on the ducks if they are sharing those attentions with more than one other.

This is a really good point. It is true of ducks and chickens. The drakes can really beat up on the hen ducks. Roosters too. Interestingly, guineas and geese do not have this issue.

Hmm yes, an issue we have now. Our little Toots (mentioned above) has developed the tell-tale curled tail feather in the last week and the voice has come out - definitely a male. That now leaves us with 2 male Indian Runners and one female. And one muscovy female to one muscovy male. Sigh. I'll need to try to find more females quick!

jacque greenleaf wrote:Hi Rob, I'm not Walter, but my experience with Muscovies is that they are *excellent* mothers, and if you are just raising them for your own needs, there is no reason at all for artificial incubation. The advice you are reading is for commercial production - if you take their clutches away, they will lay again and again and again...

Since each duck will set a clutch of (usually) a dozen or more in early spring, and, with a little protection from predators, raise all of them, and then start all over again in mid-summer, unless you have an unusually large and carnivorous family, three or four ducks and a drake will easily produce as much Muscovy meat as you'd like.

BTW, in my experience, at least three ducks for a drake is better than two. A full-grown drake is nearly twice as large as a duck, and like all drakes can be a bit obsessive. It's easier on the ducks if they are sharing those attentions with more than one other.

Thanks Walter and Jacque. For muscovies do you just have to trim their flight feathers like the chickens or is it more dramatic? I know with our chickens clipping them didnt seem to help jumping over our 5 foot fence. I was hoping not to get into that again since my wife gets frustrated having to chase them down with a toddler strapped to her back That is why I was looking at Pekin, its familiar to us and they really dont fly. I like your advice on more ducks per drake. Ill have to see how much space I can provide. Do they get upset if you separate the drake from the females if you just want eggs to eat? IM thinking this might be wise over winter, otherwise what would happen to the eggs that they lay?

Rob Sigg wrote:I know with our chickens clipping them didnt seem to help jumping over our 5 foot fence. I was hoping not to get into that again since my wife gets frustrated having to chase them down with a toddler strapped to her back That is why I was looking at Pekin, its familiar to us and they really dont fly. I like your advice on more ducks per drake. Ill have to see how much space I can provide. Do they get upset if you separate the drake from the females if you just want eggs to eat? IM thinking this might be wise over winter, otherwise what would happen to the eggs that they lay?

Something that I have learned is that clipping the birds flight feathers while they are young is important. This way they never develop the habits of flying or power hopping.

A trick on the fence is to leave the top portion floppy. If they do the power hop / fence climbing this tends to make them fall backward off the fence and the learn not to do it.

Pekin are very good at not flying with or without flight feathers so no clipping is required. They waddle. I like the Pekin. We have gotten both the regular and the giants Pekin and been happy with both.

I wouldn't separate the drake. If you don't want a drake fertilizing eggs just eat him. Fertilized eggs are not noticeably fertile if you take them within a week(?) of being laid. We collect eggs daily. If you then put them in a cool place they don't develop. I have no ethical issue with eating fertile eggs. I eat babies, adolescents and adults too. But, each to their own comfort level.

As to winter laying, our ducks only lay in the spring and early summer. Same for the guineas and geese. Our chickens lay year round. I have heard some people talk of ducks that lay a lot more but I've never seen ours do it.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
Read about our on-farm butcher shop project:
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/butchershop
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/csa

Thanks Walter, you have helped me solidify my interest in Pekin Im going to come up with the living area/shelter plans and then probably do a post for feedback at some point. I wish you werent so far away as Id like to visit you, we only get to VT once a year and its mostly southern state area.

BTW, are the ducks as loud as a rooster? If so that might be a problem for our neighbours.

Rob Sigg wrote:BTW, are the ducks as loud as a rooster? If so that might be a problem for our neighbours.

Depends, they can get pretty loud, but they usually don't keep it up all day the way some roosters do. Another reason to like Muscovies is that, unlike other domestic ducks, you will very rarely hear a quack. They hiss and they twitter - it's odd to hear such a cute little birdie sound from such a hefty bird!