Will you go from chicken to duck? you should?
This is my opinion:
The reason for switching from chicken to duck
I’ve found that ducks are much smarter than the chickens and geese I used to have free range in my yard. There is one area in my yard where I am trying to introduce some native grass and by repeatedly driving the ducks away I have been able to train them to stay away from that area.
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You may remember Paul Wheaton’s “6 Ways to Raise Chickens” presentation, free-range chickens tend to mess up everything beneath their favorite habitat.
Not so with ducks, they put all their droppings on the ground. In fact, their droppings were a big reason why I started raising these birds.
Ducks bring fertility to the land
Ducks are great manure – they are really prolific manure. With a movable paddock system, you can control and direct the manure to the different areas you want to a certain extent.
I used to use goose for this – especially in my orchard. But my family got tired of the noise and nuisance from geese in the yard, so I needed a change.
Ducks are just that. They fill their water trays with poop water and I just dump the tray near the roots of my fruit trees.
Kill two birds with one…another bird
By replacing the eggs of my free-range chickens with ducks and fertilizing my orchard with duck manure, I was able to replace both chickens and geese. This lowers my feed bill and I still have fresh eggs on my table.
Don’t worry – I won’t eat chicken forever. I’m working on a new portable paddock system and once it’s up and running I plan to reintroduce a flock of chickens (though they won’t be free range). Meanwhile, duck is a perfect solution.
doing what you think?
Have you gone from chicken to duck? If so, why – are you happy with the decision? Let us know in the comments below!
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This is an updated version of an article originally published on May 31, 2016.
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Marjory Wildcraft is the founder of The Grow Network, a community of people focused on modern self-sufficiency. She has been named an expert on off-grid living by National Geographic, she hosts the Mother Earth News Online Homes Summit, and is listed on Who’s Who in America for inspiring hundreds of thousands of backyard gardens. Marjory is the focus of an article that won the Reuters Food Sustainability Media Award and she recently wrote Growing Systems: The Essential Guide to Modern Self-Sufficient Living – From Growing Food to Making Medicines.
