Hello to you! I have lived in the city until recently. I bought small acreage, and few ducks also. I let the ducks roam free and they seem to be vivacious eaters of bugs in the grass. My question is, come Spring, will I have great grass due to the lack of bugs?, or no grass due to the ducks constant pecking (billing?)into the grass roots? I Thank You, for sharing your experience.

-- Nebie (F@rmer.com), January 19, 2000

Answers

Nebie, a few ducks on a few acres will not do much damage. In places they will, but over all, you won't have a problem. They love a lot of the weeds that grow in grass, too. So your grass overall will be better off. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), January 19, 2000.

Gerbil is right, they won't hurt the grass unless you have a whole herd of them confined on a small lawn, the exception is if you feed them their grain on the grass or near it. If there is any spilled grain, they will drill into the ground to try to find it. They are more carnivorous than they are herbivorous. If you are thinking of a nice green golf course lawn where you can sunbathe and entertain friends, though, you may want to give the ducks an area of their own, because they will poop on the lawn, and it is sloppy.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@transport.com), January 20, 2000.

I havent seen mine doing this much but heres a note to keep in mind. If you let yours out early one dewey morning and they seem to be scooping up worms or they are wandering around being nosy while your turning soil its best to put them away for a little while. Earthworms are hosts for gapeworms which your ducks will develop and then youll have to worm the whole flock. Ounce of prevention...

-- William in Wisconsin (wtoebe@wpsr.com), January 20, 2000.

We have 3 acres which we let our ducks, geese, and chickens free- range on. All do an excellent job of keeping bug & snake populations to a low. When we want to have a family get-together in yard we do have to keep the birds penned up for a few days before hand or else everyone is constantly stepping in goose poop...the ducks and chickens don't seem to be quite so messy or noticible in this regards.

Our grass does seem to benefit from having all the extra *attention* though. A friend of ours who has an organic lawn service for our local town says he wishes he could borrow our ducks and geese for a few of his customers' lawns. He says our yards have the greenest grass he's ever seen :o)

-- Kathleen (Kalfy53@hotmail.com), January 22, 2000.