I like the idea of duck eating slugs and other insect,but won't
they eat the vegetable and flowers??? I allways wanted to get some
muscovy but,I was afraid my garden would be devastated.
Philippe

Janice wrote:
: On 14 Mar 2004 21:50:43 -0800, (Mark) wrote:

:...that's all baby ducks do. That, and they spend inordinate amounts
:of time being cute as can be.
:
:I got 4 White Pekin ducklings yesterday. They're in a big box in the
:kitchen, and in 24 hours, they basically saturated their bedding with
:dribbled water (from their feeder) and duck poop. The upside is that
:they're generating lots of "organic material" for my compost bin.
:
:We built an enclosed pen off the side of the garden shed for them once
:the weather warms a bit and they're big enough to stay outside.
:Eventually, I'm going to enclose the garden and let the little rascals
:gorge to their hearts content on June bugs and slugs.
:
:Just thought I'd share.
:
:Mark

: watch out for the run off from the roof if that's a side of your shed
: with run off. I put some baby ducks that were just getting too big to
: be in the house, but not fledged, and it rained one day when I was
: gone to work, and even though I'd put plastic over the box.. and
: weighted it etc.. it got into the box and that equaled dead ducks..
: muscovy ducks.. which aren't *really* ducks, they're a south american
: waterfowl which do not have the oil glands that ducks do, so they can
: and do drown if they get into water and can't get out easily. They
: are funny so ugly they're cute and the don't quack!! So you can keep
: them without the entire neighborhood knowing they're there. They're
: prodigious producers of big eggs that aren't as pasty as duck eggs,
: the whites are more like chicken egg whites, and overall they're
: better than ducks. If you don't take them away from them, they will
: (provided there is a drake available) hatch out 10 to 15 eggs, as many
: as they can cover. If you're inclined to see them as livestock, not
: just pets, they're quite tasty.. tastes like beef!

: Otherwise if you gotta have ducks, india runner ducks or indian..
: stand bolt upright like a surprised regular duck. They look like
: animated bowling pins. ;-)

: Janice