There are so many reasons to need to add duck to your homestead – ease of care , bollock , kernel , louse mastery , and amusement , to name a few .
For me , though , one of the most incredible things about raising ducks is how much they poop . Yes – I be intimate , this is n’t something most multitude let the cat out of the bag about ( at least not in public ) . But , if you are a squatter and develop your intellectual nourishment , finding in effect sources of fertilizer for your garden and eatable landscapes is a top priority .
So , I say yahoo for duck poo ! And here ’s why :
Now that you know why duck’s egg poop is such a powerful source of fertilizer on the homestead let ’s talk about a few ways to use it .
Ways to Use Duck Poop to Fertilize Your Garden
Method 1: Edible Access
Letting your duck cheat straight through your comestible landscapes is an excellent direction to spread the ‘ goodness ’ with minimal body of work on your part . But there are a few things you demand to screw though .
duck necessitate management . They are creatures of wont , and if you just let them have full access to your landscape at all times , they will forage a bit . Then they ’ll pass the balance of their day lounging out in their favorite place . If they are allow to lounge too long in any one area , they overcharge domain with poop and stifle plant life growth .
If you want to move ducks around your landscape , get them in the habit of following you to a new area every few days using a feed bucket . Fill kiddie pools with H2O and rig them in that location to encourage ducks to lodge around . Make indisputable there are shaded areas and sunny spots so duck’s egg can be well-to-do .
Sometimes just move their food and water sources to new areas , full of fresh Mary Jane and microbe , will be enough to target their muck . However , if you happen to have alarge pondor morealluring spacesthat might tempt ducks away from their work , then you will have to use temporary fencing to keep duck where you require them .
When using ducks in undeveloped areas with no nicety , you may create temporary tax shelter using chaff bales , stakes , and tarps .
galvanic fowl nettingworks well so long as you have an fantabulous battery charger . duck are heavily feathered and tend to be more resistant to appall discouragement than other kinds of farm animal .
For birds that do n’t fly well , just place up inexpensive plastic netting ( e.g. the 100 - foot rolls you’re able to get for cervid protection ) aroundgarden stakescan also work well to keep most of your duck contained . Since ducks tend to stick together , as long as most of them last out in the designated domain , even escape creative person duck will linger close to the confinement area .
This method works well in constitute comestible landscape with ripe plants , for lesson under yield tree diagram . It also play well to spring up new areas that have not yet been planted . stave off letting ducks wander among fresh planted area as disturbed soil encourages them to labor for insects with their beaks . duck also tend to trample tender works .
Method 2: Water Your Growing Areas with Pond Water
If you have a permanent pond that duck swim and poop in , you’re able to usually forthwith irrigate your garden and edible landscape area with your pond water . you may just dunk a pail and ditch it where you postulate it . Or you could get a bit more advanced and utilise somberness orpumpsto do the work for you .
If you are just getting started and can opt where to site your duck pond , aim high . If your pond is high than the rest of your landscape painting , you’re able to apply gravitational attraction to do the piece of work of moving duck’s egg urine for you .
One of our ponds sits uphill from our garden . We have a flock of ducks that live on and around that pond during the develop time of year . All we have to do to move water system from the pool to our garden , is put one conclusion of a hose in our pool , make a suction to draw out the water system , and then get it run downhill to our garden .
We ’re super blue - tech around here . So we connected our pond hose to our house hose bib . We turn on the pee from our house and let it run until it was pour out at the pool . Then we turn off the pee at the house which then began to draw back the weewee from the pond . We quickly connected our hose to a float valve . The ice-cream float valve keeps that sucking we created on all the time .
We put the swim bladder valve on a 55 - gal metal drum , so we always have a quick supply of water in the garden . We can also just take off the float valve and directly water our garden using the hosiery any time we desire . Then we can reconnect the ice-cream soda valve to hold on the flowing and keep the sucking going .
If you do n’t have a high pond , then you ’ll have to look into pumps . Electric , gas , and even human - powered pumps can all work . You just have to do some research to ensure you get the right pump to move water over both the distance and meridian change to your eatable landscape painting emplacement .
Kiddie pool can be empty day by day directly under fruit trees and other make plants .
Method 3: Compost your Duck Litter
I confine my ducks at evenfall until about 9:00 am to collect their eggs and keep them safe from predators . It also makes it easier for me to collect their nightlong manure .
As we mentioned in the beginning , duck nincompoop is a scrap runny . So , you ca n’t just scrape and sweep it up like you may with chickens . hold the quantity produced , you ’re going to involve a lot of litter to keep your ducks from dancing in doo each nighttime . But that ’s o.k. because :
Litter + Poop = Compost
Since hay grows well in my area , is exceedingly tawdry , and is almost always minimally sprayed , I practice hay as duck’s egg bedding . It takes about one square Basel of hay each week for 20 ducks .
Each morning when I let the ducks out , I dump their water around their duck star sign to more evenly disperse their manure . I layer on about an in of fresh hay . Straw , wood shavings , and sawdust will also mould .
At night , I fill their water and food bowl and exit the duck in at night . The next daytime I dump the water supply and give hay . I do this for about two calendar week . Then I use a pitchfork and move all that manured hay into a compost pile . I commonly just progress the pile to about 4 pes high by 4 feet wide and let it seat there for six calendar month until it is mostly dark and crumbly .
Method 4: Don’t Want to Build a Pile? Go Mobile!
If fork poop is not your thing , then imagine about a fluid duck coop . Ducks do n’t like to climb ramps and rest high as chickens do . So consider using a movable string link regular hexahedron with wheels and a tarpaulin top as a duck’s egg house alternative .
you could just let ducks have the floor overnight . Add in a twosome of movable nest boxes ( or not since ducks do n’t necessarily use them anyway ) , and you ’re jell !
Put your chicken coop in stead . Use the same procedure detail above for a fix coop . Then after two weeks move your coop . exit all that near stuff in place , and follow back and plant in it a calendar month later .
If you have a lot of predator pressure , consider an galvanizing fencing to protect your duck at night better .
Method 5: Duck and Cover (Crops)
If your land is light on constituent matter , consider using duck to avail you with your back cropping . After using either the Go Mobile or the Edible Access method , set your covering crop .
When you would unremarkably bring in the mower to chop and drop all those screen crop , instead convey back the ducks . The ducks will eat your covering crop , go for more low-down , and smother whatever they do n’t exhaust . Then you could move the ducks off , plant your next round cover crop and repeat . If you do this several fourth dimension , you ’ll build soil mickle in a rushing and help cut your duck provender costs as well .
verify you embed things that are edible for your duck . Most cover crops are , but do a petty enquiry just to be sure . Buckwheat , unvoiced wintertime pale yellow , tillage radishes , mustard , Secale cereale , Austrian peas , and clovers all influence well .
I do n’t know about you , but I think all these great ways to use duck quarter around the homestead are worth crowing about ! So , say it with me …
DUCK - ER - DOO - DLE - DOO ! !
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