Kristine Ellis

Nicole Alderman wrote:Congratulations to our winners!

Jon Jensen
M Waisman
Carmen Cullen
Carla Burke

Winners, please keep an eye out on your email inbox for an email from the publisher to arrange the shipment of your books!

---

Thank you so much, Kristine, for hanging out with us this week, and for helping answer so many ducky questions!

---

For those of your bummed that you did not win, here's a handy-dandy link to buy her book and support this awesome author (and learn a bunch in the process!)

Just want to say thank you all so much for welcoming me to permies this week! It has been a pleasure getting to chat with so many duck lovers and answer your questions. Congratulations to the winners, and I hope you enjoy reading! -Krissy

Gary Sandahl wrote:Hi Kristine!   I've heard that ducks can be great at keeping ticks under control.  Can you give me some idea which breeds might be best for this?

Hi Gary,

Runner ducks are best known for being great at pest control, but their favorite pests seem to be slugs and snails. All domestic ducks derived from mallards (which is all of them except muscovys) will certainly eat ticks if they happen to see them, but ducks tend to forage more near their water source if they have one so they eat a lot of water bugs and drill holes looking for worms around the pond. If you want a bird specifically that seems to favor ticks, you'll want to look into guinea fowl.

Daniel Hash wrote:Kristine. It looks like a great book.  I am in northern Idaho and currently planning and setting up for a small flock of Muscovy Ducks next Spring.  They will be (mostly) free range.  I know these ducks are from a different linage from domestic ducks.  Do you cover Muscovy's in your book?  Also plan on setting up a 300 gal. duck pond (they will also have a very nearby medium sized creek).  Am interested in learning about Quakaponics and using the duck pond fertilized water for my Zone 2 perinial plants.  Does the book talk about this as well? Daniel W Hash

Hi Daniel,

My book focuses on domestic ducks derived from mallards, but there is a section outlining some key differences between muscovy ducks and mallard derived ducks. I found it important to only focus on one species, as many things that are true for one species aren´t true for the other. While writing it I found myself having to constantly type in parenthesis that something I said didnt apply to muscovy ducks, so it was easier to just focus on one species and give the muscovies there own section.

I use my duck pond water to fertilize my garden and it has worked great so far. I noticed the grass near my duck pen is so much greener than the rest of the lawn and grows incredibly fast. Duck manure can be used immediately as fertilizer, unlike chicken manure which has to be composted first. I don´t go into crazy detail about this in the book- but I hope you end up doing this with your ducks, because it is truly wonderful in my garden!

I know this is an older thread but I thought I could chime in in case it helps someone dealing with the same issues. A few reasons ducks may stop laying eggs, or simply slow down production are: age, breed (bantam ducks for example, lay way less eggs than standard size ducks), stress (predators nearby, getting overmated by the drakes, etc), improper nutrition, and season (typically they lay less when there is less light, so winter for example-but also during molting season. Ducks don´t molt all at once like chickens, they have several small molts throughout the year, and one big molt when they lose flight feathers usually in late summer/early fall).

I´d love to hear an update on what you ended up choosing (if you ever did). Geese are certainly excellent foragers when it comes to grass, but I don´t think they would help with the poison ivy. As mentioned above, the cotton patch goose could be a good option, plus they´re on the livestock conservatory threatened list.

Wow you have done a great job already! Ducks are surely going to love this pond, and all of the plant life. I would suggest adding some small minnows in the pond too. I´m sure other little critters will show up naturally too. Ducks will love to snack on the plants as well as the minnows and other critters that they can catch.

We got lucky because the house we bought had an addition with a separate thermostat and a door that seals it off from the whole house. So the babies can stay in there and the smell doesn´t linger in the rest of the house. They are in a plastic play pen type thing. It connects together at each corner so I start off small and expand it as they get bigger.

Wow that´s quite a big pond, I´m sure your ducks will love it. The idea of using the water to fertilize your plants is great to. I think how often you have to change the water will depend on a lot of factors, so just keep an eye on it and you'll know when you feel like it has to be cleaned out. Remember ducks don't live in perfectly clear water in the wild, but you don't want a pond completely full of duck manure either. I would recommend adding some small minnows, pond plants like duck weed, a small solar powered fountain to airate the water, and maybe even some snails. Everything working together like it does in nature will help keep it clean longer, but with such a big pond you hopefully wont have to clean it too much at all

Im glad you found a way to make geese work for you! I love that they eat so much less grain than ducks so their feed cost is lower. Im thinking about adding some to my own flock

I don´t do this myself but I think they would enjoy it as long as everything in their routine stays relatively the same. Mine seem to hate change, but as long as their food/water and coop doesn't move they are quite happy. So maybe you could put the water bowl on the same side of the fence everyday, even if its different paddocks. I think this would be especially good for geese too, since they forage a lot more grass compared to ducks