Growing food for your ducks
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What are chicken and ducks’ favorite garden plants? Find out what treats you can grow in your garden to share with your feathered family members!
If you have the garden space and interest, you might consider growing some of the supplemental food/treats your ducks eat. Since we’ve had garden space specifically devoted to our ducks for over a decade, we’ll share some of our ducks’ favorite home-grown goodies, plus a few growing notes.
First, know that giving your ducks unfettered access to tender annual plants in your garden will result in dead plants. What your ducks don’t eat to death, they’ll trample. So make sure these growing spaces have physical barriers/fencing in place to keep your ducks out.
Over the years, we’ve learned what garden treats our ducks do and don’t like. Now, we’re always sure to grow their favorite varieties to keep them spoiled with fresh organic produce every season of the year.
In our ducks’ back yard (notice we no longer refer to it as our back yard because that wouldn’t reflect reality), we grow larger, hardier perennial plants that our ducks can’t destroy: grapes, pomegranates, thornless blackberries (thorns would damage their feet), persimmons, blueberries, peaches, and elderberries. Our ducks provide these plants with abundant fertilizer and pest control services. They can’t reach the fruit on these plants, nor do they care for them.
Best garden plants for ducks
*note: growing info below is based on our temperate climate region, Zone 7B
COOL SEASON garden treats for ducks
1. Austrian Winter Peas (the tender leaves and growth tips, not the pods)
Season: fall, winter, spring | Light: full sun-part shade
Description and growing notes: Peas aren’t just a spring plant if you know the right varieties. ‘Austrian winter’ peas are the cold-hardiest variety we grow, surviving uncovered to around 10°F.
The peas from the mature spring pods make an excellent dried pea for soup, but they’re not as good as snap peas for eating raw. The real magic of ‘Austrian winter’ peas is the delicious edible shoots/leaves, which taste every bit as good – if not better – than sugar snap peas. They’re also very high in protein, and as you might have guessed, ducks LOVE them. Austrian winter peas also make a great nitrogen-fixing cover crop.
We sow Austrian winter peas densely and treat them as a cut-and-come-again green trimmed to a height of 2-3′. During the late winter and early spring when the plants are rapidly growing, you can harvest from the same spot every 7-10 days.
Peas don’t just produce tasty pods, they also produce delicious foliage. The best part is the tender young growth shoots, which taste just like peas, but have a soft, silky texture. Our fave variety for shoots is Austrian winter peas. Here’s a quick video showing you how to harvest them from the plant. #austrianwinterpeas #heirloomseeds #organicseeds #GrowJourney A post shared by Tyrant Farms (@tyrantfarms) on Apr 13, 2017 at 1:10pm PDT
2. Chickweed
Season: fall, winter, spring | Light: grows well in full sun but will go to seed earlier; thrives in part shade
Description and growing notes: Chickweed is a delightful “weed” that grows abundantly in the winter and spring throughout the US. The flavor is sweet and mild and most similar to corn silk (the frills that stick up out of the top of a corn husk). Chickweed is one of the most cold-hardy greens you can grow – we’ve had it live uncovered through 10°F.
It grows exceedingly fast in the late winter and early spring. Since we encourage this plant in the lawn portion of our yard where our ducks forage in the late afternoon, they absolutely gorge themselves on it. Yes, the reason it’s called “chickweed” is that chickens do indeed love the plant, too. Once you know what chickweed looks like, you’ll probably see it everywhere during its growing season. This might not be a plant you intentionally grow in your garden beds, but you could grow it in other areas of your yard if it’s not already present.
3. Chicory
Season: spring and fall | Light: full sun-part shade
Description and growing notes: Our favorite chicory varieties for ducks are “leaf chicories” which feature tall upright leaves. You can cut all the leaves at once a few inches above the ground and they’ll grow back within weeks, making them a highly productive cut-and-come-again green.
For reference, leaf chicory is often sold as “dandelion greens” in high end grocery stores even though they’re totally different plant species. In addition to their productivity, one of the best things about leaf chicory is that the plants will produce continuously from fall through spring in our mild Zone 8a garden. Use row cover/low tunnels to keep it happy in the winter.
4. Lettuce
Season: spring and fall (summer in cold climates) | Light: full sun-part shade
Ducks love lettuce. However, since lettuce isn’t typically a cut-and-come-again green, we’d only recommend growing it if you have a large amount of growing space or a more space-efficient hydroponic system. .
5. Kale
Season: fall, winter, spring for us (summer for cold climates) | Light: full sun-part shade
Description and growing notes: We have yet to find a variety of kale that our ducks don’t like. Since kale is a cut-and-come again green that we can grow for most months of the year, it’s perhaps the MVP of our duck garden plants.
One thing we’ve noticed is that the flavor of kale takes on a more intense, almost mustardy flavor as the plants get stressed in late spring-summer in our climate zone and/or starts going to bolt. Our ducks stop eating it then, but absolutely love it every other season.
WARM SEASON garden treats for ducks
1. Tomatoes
Season: summer | Light: full sun (smaller-fruited currant and cherry tomatoes can actually grow in part shade, although they won’t produce as much fruit)
Description: We have no idea why, but tomatoes are probably our ducks’ absolute favorite food. If we were the only thing standing between our ducks and a tomato, we’d be seriously worried for our health and safety.
Small-fruited varieties like ‘Matt’s Wild Cherry’ can be eaten whole by your ducks. Cut larger tomatoes into bite-sized chunks. If, like us, you live in the hot, humid south where tomato diseases run rampant, crop rotation, compost, and disease-resistant varieties are your friends (and your ducks’ soulmates).
A post shared by Tyrant Farms (@tyrantfarms) on Sep 21, 2016 at 11:16am PDT
2. Ground Cherries
Season: summer | Light: full sun for best fruit production and flavor
Description and growing notes: This small husked nightshade fruit tastes like a cross between a pineapple and a tomato. Some of our ducks go absolutely bonkers for them but others don’t really care for them. Under ideal conditions, each ground cherry plant can produce hundreds of fruits before dying.
3. Watermelons and cucumbers
Season: summer | Light: full sun
Most of our ducks love watermelon and cucumbers. Some don’t. But both of these cucurbit family plants make an excellent hydrating summer treat for ducks since they’re packed with water, electrolytes, and other nutrients that can help ducks (and people) better endure the heat.
4. Malabar Spinach (Basella alba)
Season: summer | Light: full sun
In our hot humid climate, it’s very difficult to grow fresh greens for ourselves or our ducks during the summer. Most greens either wither and die or go to seed. An exception to that rule is the heat-loving Malabar spinach, native to Southeast Asia. This vigorous vining plant will produce loads of nutritious, spinach-size leaves. It can be grown vertically on a trellis or fence to save space. The only downside? The leaves have a mucilaginous texture (think okra) that some people find off-putting. However, that mucilage is great for gut health in humans, and likely in ducks as well.
This is the first year we’ve grown Malabar spinach for our ducks. Unfortunately, they were able to access the plants when young and ate them to death. Yes, we violated our own “don’t give ducks access to tender plants” rule.
Plants our ducks do not like AND plants to avoid feeding to ducks
Just as in humans, there seems to be wide variability in what one duck likes versus another. We talk to lots of duck parents whose birds like things our flock won’t touch, despite repeated exposure..
What plants should you avoid giving your ducks? First, avoid plants high in oxalates such as spinach, chard, and beet greens. Oxalic acid can bind with calcium thus inhibiting its absorption (not ideal since egg shells are primarily made of calcium carbonate).
Additionally, plants in the allium (onion) family should be avoided since they can be mildly toxic to ducks. Some of our rescue ducks love eating our garlic chives and Egyptian walking onions (despite our protests), but have shown no ill effects. The dosage makes the poison.
We have plenty of other toxin-containing plants in our yard (examples: foxglove, daffodils, arums, hydrangea) and our ducks don’t eat them. We can’t say whether this is due to intuition or due to sampling and determining these to be poorly flavored. Perhaps if they were starved of greens our ducks would be at higher risk for eating such plants.
Lastly, comfrey is an attractive perennial plant we grow to produce green mulch. While it’s probably not problematic for animals to occasionally consume comfrey in small amounts, ducks should not regularly eat it or ever eat large quantities of it since doing so could cause liver and lung damage, cancer, and other problems. Unfortunately, many of our ducks do enjoy eating comfrey so we have to keep them away.
KIGI,
Have you tried feeding your babies papaya? Mine get either papaya or watermelon every day in their afternoon treat. (It’s also a good way to keep them out of their run while I change out the waterers, bowls, and kiddie pool. Otherwise they tend to be a little too helpful.) I’ve got a variety of babies, buff, welsh harlequin, blue and black Swedish, silver Appleyard, golden hybrid, khaki campbell, and the queen bee, my Rouen, Quackers. All of them seem to love both fruits if the way they attack the food trays is any indication. Especially my boy Georgie. The girls have all learned to get out of his way when the food goes down. He has no qualms about running them over or me for that matter. I have found that if I put the fruit on the bottom they dig past the peas, corn, green beans, carrots, and kale to get to it and hardly notice the powdered brewers yeast I sprinkle on. Everything else is just an afterthought. Don’t get me wrong, they love their veggies, but I guess they all have a bit of a sweet tooth, well I guess in their case it would be a sweet bill. I’m going to try some of the other things you listed to try and give them more variety.
Any suggestions on how I can go about keeping my kale fresh? I’m new to this so haven’t had time to get my own garden going and have to rely on store bought for now.
Also, what kind of regular feed do you provide? I’m having trouble finding one that will work for both my ducks and chickens since they grew up together and the chickens are convinced their ducks. They even go so far as to wade in the kiddie pool with the ducks, feet only but I’ve had chickens all my life and never have I had one that would get in the water. At least not on purpose. They don’t roost at night either. They dog pile right in with the ducks. It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, but cute as all get out. I never realized that ducks and chickens could bond. I also didn’t know that they would bond with my german shephard mix. Quackers treats her like she’s part of the flock. She doesn’t hesitate to correct her when she’s being a little to rambunctious. She also calls to her when she gets too far away. Is that normal?
I’m also working on building them a better pool based on your other article. I just have to make a few alterations so the chickens can wade with them and Ellie can swim with them. By the way, you’ve been a lifesaver as I navigate the new world of raising ducks. I had no idea what I was in for, but I’m enjoying every minute. You might go so far as to say I’m obsessed.
Wonderful to hear about your various experiences with ducks (and chickens and German shepherds)! Sounds like a good place to be an animal.
Oddly, our Welsh Harlequin ducks do not like watermelon or papaya. We grow both fruits (yes, even papaya – https://www.tyrantfarms.com/how-to-grow-papayas-in-pots-in-non-tropical-climate-zones/) and can attest that our ducks’ watermelon aversions are not due to low quality fruit. We’ve heard from countless people over the years that their ducks do like watermelon so we’re not quite sure the reason for our flock’s lack of interest. Perhaps we could have continued to provide watermelon to them when they were ducklings so they acquired the taste.
Perhaps most accurately you could refer to your ducks’ sweet tooth/bill as a sweet lamellae. Ha!
Keeping kale fresh: we keep ours in the fridge in a bag in the veggie drawer until we use it. When giving it to our ducks, we chop it into small pieces and then put it in their water bowls. It doesn’t last very long from that point on.
We give our ducks Mazuri waterfowl feed. They have lower protein Maintenance feed and higher protein Layer/Breeder feed. If you want to take a deeper dive into our recommended duck feeding regimen: https://www.tyrantfarms.com/what-to-feed-pet-or-backyard-ducks-to-maximize-their-health-and-longevity/.
So interesting about your chickens… and your “swimming” chickens – ha!
As for your duck calling for your German shepherd – not something we have personal experience with but it sounds like she’s quite bonded with the dog, as you said. In that case, being out of visual contact with a beloved flockmate can cause a duck to get a bit stressed and call out with their “where are you?” quacks.
Are any of the plants in your top 10 poisonous to pets? I looked up ground cherries and a lot of sites say do not allow consumption for the unripe fruit or leaves by any livestock, pets, or humans.
Hi James! It’s generally a good idea to avoid nightshade leaves (tomatoes, ground cherries, eggplants, etc), whether you’re human or poultry. We’ve grown lots of nightshades in proximity to our ducks and they seem to quickly gain an intuition of what’s edible or not. They also get lots of leafy greens each day so they’re not ravenous for greens or nutrient-deficient. In our opinion, the risk is mostly to the plants which will be trampled to death by ducks or pecked to death by chickens if given full access. Long story short: plants like ground cherries shouldn’t be a health risk to your poultry, but it’s probably best to grow all of these plants in an area your poultry can’t access and dole out the garden-fresh goodies accordingly.
We have a tropical garden with palm trees & all sorts of tropical plants, many produce fruit. Mixed in the area are tropical flowers, Japanese maple tree, really anything you might find in a tropical setting, minus the alligators. Would it be safe for both the plants & the ducks to allow them to free range in that area? Thank you.
Sounds like duck paradise! Yes, should be safe for both plants and ducks.
They’ll fertilize your larger plants. Be warned that they may trample or nibble your smaller plants though. The main things you’ll need to be careful of are whether you have fencing to keep them on your property and keep predators from getting in. You’ll still want to put them up in a protected coop at night when predators are most active. In our experience, ducks quickly figure out which plants are edible and which aren’t. Also, be sure you’re providing them with a good, balanced diet which includes fresh greens.
Any suggestions for hot weather and shallow root edibles?
I’m building a “Quacker Box” with a green roof and we’re nearing our hot summer days.
Might just do a cover crop if I can’t figure it out.
I would also suggest kale – so pretty to grow, but not something I’m fond of eating. My hens go mad for it, so it’s a win-win!
Agreed! That’s why kale is #4 on this list. 🙂
I brought home 4 wonderful, 12 to 13 week old welsh harlequins about 6 weeks ago. Do you have any suggestions for helping to tam the. They know me and know I bring food, treats and fresh water, abundantly, but I still can’t get any closer than about 3 feet.
Hi Randy! Sorry we missed your question. Yes, in fact we have a whole article detailing how to get your ducks to like you: https://www.tyrantfarms.com/how-to-get-your-ducks-to-like-you-three-tips/