Raising Ducks
Basics
Duckling diary
Management
Housing
Eggs
Links/Resources
Movies
and please note:
Backyard pasture for ducks
RAISING POULTRY IN THE SUBURBS or in a rural backyard requires some unconventional thinking, both about your backyard and about sustainable livestock management. Our goal was to develop a system of rotational grazing that wouldn't destroy our backyard. It's been a success, if not a complete one; we always have a few bare patches at the back of the yard waiting new growth, but the ducks do well, and most of the yard stays usable for us.
Rotational grazing
The current standard in sustainable livestock management is to raise
livestock on pasture and to rotate them through various fields so they
don't destroy any one area by overgrazing. Rotation not only protects
the pasture but also allows the farmer to more effectively manage the
animals' nutrition by planting a different mix of grasses in different
fields. This is now commonly done with dairy cows and beef cattle as well
as hogs, chicken and other poultry, and various other livestock.
Because birds can fly and are highly susceptible
to predation, pastured poultry require more than mere fencing. A popular
solution to keeping the birds safe and in one place is to use what's called
a "chicken tractor," a portable chicken coop and henhouse on
wheels.
Suburban ducks require two modifications to the idea of a chicken tractor.
First, ducks need not only confinement and protection but also water in
which to bathe. (They can get by without it, but they're happier and cleaner
if they have it.) We could have built a pond, but then we couldn't rotate
the ducks around our yard; one section would just turn to muck.
Second, the ducks aren't out in some field
somewhere; they're a few yards from our kitchen window. We have picnics
in the backyard we now share with our poultry, and we have neighbors.
So a "duck tractor" had to be reasonably attractive as well
as functional.
(A third problem was that I didn't feel
that a typical chicken tractor allows the birds enough room to move around.
I wanted them to be comfortable and happy, not just safe.)
Our solution was to build a movable grazing
pen from wood and chickenwire with a baby pool inside, which we refill
daily. You can see the results, with photos, here.
We move the pen once a week in summer; that's enough time for them to
trample most of the grass and generally make a mess but not totally destroy
the ground. In winter, when the grass won't grow back, we park the pen
and use dry leaves for daytime bedding.
Backyard pasture
The next problem is the grass itself. There have not been, to my knowledge,
any research studies to determine the proper mix of grasses to grow in
your backyard to optimize both duck nutrition and croquet-playing enjoyment.
So it has been, and will continue to be, a process of continual experimentation.
We started with whatever mess of crabgrass,
vetch, plaintain, and (rarely) fescue happened to be growing in our yard
when we bought the house. This is all fairly hardy, which is why I like
it. And it stands up well to the ducks, for awhile.
We soon realized, though, that we were
going to have to reseed each time we moved the duck pen; they simply do
too much damage too quickly. They eat the tender new growth and muck up
the rest by splashing water out of the pool and then trampling it. To
save as much grass as possible for us, we move the pen around the back
of the yard in a slow arc over a period of eight weeks or so.
Clover seems to work well for reseeding. It grows in poor soil (which
we have, even with the addition of duck manure); it sprouts quickly, especially
in ground the ducks have prepared; and it provides the ducks with some
nutrition as they eat the shoots. We've tried both crimson and white clover,
and I can't say that we have a preference so far, but we haven't used
it through a full season yet. I also don't have any data on how nutritious
clover is for ducks; I'm trying to find some.
In 2003 I'll experiment with blends of
clover and different grasses to see what grows best, what's best for the
ducks, and what we can afford. I'll keep you posted!
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