Articles about Keeping Ducks and Geese
Keeping a few ducks in the garden is becoming very popular. Even without a pond, you can keep the smaller domestic ducks happy with a tub that is emptied and refilled daily with fresh water, in fact, many geese seem content with a reasonable tub as long as they have a reasonable amount of space and most of all grass to eat.
Keeping Ducks
 Before the second World War, ducks were on track to become the biggest egg layers. It's only the recent advances with hybrid hens that has meant the duck has taken a bit of a back seat for eggs however many ducks lay a very respectable amount of eggs that can be a fair size larger than a chicken's egg.
Last year, I recorded the number of eggs I had from my Indian Runner Ducks and on average I had 199 eggs from them. Trials during the 1920's of Khaki Campbell ducks, amongst others established that they were able to produce more than 250 eggs per year without any special conditions! Compare this to the majority of pure bred chickens, throw in the extra hardiness of ducks, the bug exterminating power in the garden (without scratching every loose bit of soil onto the garden path like chickens) and their individual personalities and you've got a fantastic all weather egg laying machine that can give your pure bred chickens a run for their money!
Keeping Geese
Keeping Geese can be very rewarding, although it seems they have gone out of fashion at the moment having a reputation of being aggressive. Not all geese are aggressive though and if you choose the right breed for your set-up then you’ll have a natural lawn mower for grass control and some delicious free range eggs to eat or incubate from late winter to mid-summer. Geese make fantastic burglar alarms and have excellent eyesight for things out of the ordinary. Geese are fairly self sufficient, needing only wheat (found in mixed corn), fresh water, grit and as much grass as you can give them. If there is a good supply of grass available for your geese then they won’t need much additional feeding but if grass is short, you should supplement it with other greens like lettuce or cabbage.
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Articles and photos about specific breeds can be found here: Duck Breeds and Goose Breeds |
Keeping Waterfowl