does anyone keep ducks?

[jollyfolly]

have heard they are great pets and brilliant at catching slugs... would like to know how easy they are to look after?
also, can i put slugs in the compost bin... cant cope with killing them and hate slug pellets.

we have ducks jf, but they're in a pen, they love to eat snails if they find any or you chuck some at them. We wouldn't have them in the garden though, they'd poo all over the lawn I guess. they are quite easily tamed though and great for kids to feed etc.. Don't know if that's of any use to you...

Had two ducks in our garden while they waited for their eggs to hatch. Very cute, very tame would wait at door to be fed. They weren´t pets, but seemed fairly hardy and capable of sorting themselves out so would make nice pets IYSWIM. Don´t think they´d need much maintainence.

But the shit. O god the shit. Lots and lots. Everywhere. Even in the house, as they´d just wander in if you left the door open. I guess though that it just dissolves into the grass, but not like dog/cat poo that you can scoop up, so tricky to keep garden nice if you´ve got kids running round. But they are cute though.

HTH

We had two Khaki Campbells when I was growing up and they were wonderful pets. They were very funny and also 'cheerful' iyswim! They were very good layers and it's true that they eat all the pests from your garden. Our neighbours used to borrow them to have a clear-out of their veg patches.

But yes, they are very messy and smelly if you aren't strict about cleaning them out as often as poss. Also, if you value your lawn you need to be able to keep them off it in the wet weather as their webbed feet will turn it into a mud bath in no time. Mind you, we only had a tiny garden. If you've loads of space they would probably be a lot less trouble.

Also bear in mind that they live a long time. Not sure exactly how long because my sister and I had left home and left them in the care of my Dad and he left them out after dusk and a fox got them . However, they were at least 10 years old then and still healthy.

We had them for years when I was a child - lovely pets and fantastic eggs. But if they get out of their pen they will destroy your lawn and if they are left out after dusk you will have no ducks in the morning...

I raised a duck from the egg when I was a teenager. He was very sweet and lovely when he was little, but not a good domestic pet when he got bigger. They do poo a lot, and their feet smear it all over the place as well as killing lawns. We gave him away, and he got eaten by a fox after a while. That said, if I ever had a house in the country with a pond, I would love to have ducks!