Why are ducks better than other types of yard fowl? The answer is simple.
They will take up less time and resources while providing you with better nutrition and higher yields.
The bottom line is that if two people start in a survival situation, and the one has 20 chickens and the other 20 ducks, I would bet on the guy with the ducks.
Ducks give you more for less.
But Don’t Ducks Fly?
Ducks can fly. But if you were to ask duck owners how many of their ducks have flown away, they are bound to look at you funny.
It’s the same as asking cattle ranchers how many of their cattle have run away over the years? After all, cattle can run!
If you provide your ducks with a safe and protected sleeping area, a pond, and an area to forage in, they will never fly away. Hunger and Danger might drive them off, but if you take care of those two aspects, they will stay put.
Better Meat and Eggs
Duck meat is slightly lower in protein than chicken meat, but is richer in nutrients and also has a higher energy yield due to a higher fat to protein ratio. Particularly the skin of a duck has a good deal of fat.
In a survival scenario, you will need all the calories you can get, and if your body is adapted to run on ketones and glycogen, the fat from ducks will end up fueling your muscles and not accumulating in your arteries.
Duck eggs are actually what you should be after. Duck eggs have a higher protein and fat percentage than chicken eggs. They are also much higher in vitamin D and Vitamin B12.
100 grams of duck egg will cover almost your entire Vitamin B12 requirement. This is a big deal, as B12 deficiency can easily result from eating too many plants and is very detrimental to your nerve function and red blood cell production.
Related: The Best Long-Lasting Protein Sources for a Crisis
Duck eggs will ensure you stay in tip-top shape.
Duck Down Stuffing
Duck down is widely considered to be one of the best heat insulators. You can use duck down to stuff duvets, pillows, jackets, etc.
The great thing is that they have relatively thin feather shafts, which will not scratch you through the fabric.
Great Parents
Not all duck breeds excel equally at parenting. Khaki Campbell, which outlays most chicken breeds, is known for being extremely good parents.
This is important as you will want subsequent generations of ducks. Furthermore, parents teach valuable survival, foraging and also parenting skills. Ducks that don’t look after their offspring will not pass down valuable survival skills.
Furthermore, young ducks without parental protection, make easy targets for predators.
Water Quality
Not all murky water is bad. Modern people tend to want all water to look like it came from a bottle.
But, if you water plants with bottled water versus watering plants with nutrient and life-rich water, the plants getting some fish poop and amoebae will be much healthier.
Duck poop is not only fish food, but release nutrients into the water that your plants will love! Water that is rich in microbial life beats “dead” water hands down when you are trying to create a natural ecosystem.
Free-Ranging
Ducks do better when free-ranged than chickens would. The fact that they can forage in water and on land gives them more versatility when searching for food.
Ducks also like eating slugs and snails, so that’s a big plus for your vegetable patch.
Ducks also have more options for evading predators, so they should last longer in environments that support a wide range of domesticated and wild animals.
Related: The Best Fowls to Raise for SHTF – Quail, Guineafowl, Chicken, Turkey, Emu, etc.
What a Mess!
Some people complain that ducks are messy. If you are keeping your animals in a small enclosed area, I would agree.
But, this article is assuming that you have a small garden or homestead where you will be keeping your ducks. Chicken poop is firmer and more pelletized than duck poop, which is very watery.
Ducks kept in a small enclosure will require that their area is cleaned from time to time to prevent unhygienic circumstances.
Destrution
Gardeners that have fine gardens will attest to the destructive nature of chickens. We are not talking Protester type destruction here, as neither ducks nor chickens fling rocks or upend police vehicles.
Chickens’ natural way of foraging is quite destructive, particularly to young and delicate plant life. A few chickens will benefit your soil, but they can wreak havoc in newly planted areas. Seedlings beware!
Raising Ducks
Raising ducks is about as easy as raising chickens. The most important thing you want to provide to your ducks is a safe place to breed and raise their young while being able to forage for food.
Elevated platforms that keep out the wind and rain will do perfectly. I have always recommended creating an island in the center of the pond as this could further help to keep predators at bay.
Young ducks will forage with their parents and are natural swimmers. So, you don’t need to worry about the young drowning.
If your ducks are in a small enclosure, you will need to clean it regularly. Webbed feet and sloppy poop don’t mix well, and you will soon have a sloppy, slushy, reeking mess.
Extra Feed
You can feed ducks grains and greens, much the same as chickens.
I feed my ducks leftover vegetable snippets that I chop finely and scatter around their dam.
Get Your Ducks In a Row
So, there you have it, folks.
I would bet that many of you never realized that ducks are such extremely valuable livestock to have in a survival situation.
Even if you just want to augment your current diet and bring in some variety.
Ducks are a great option. Get Quacking!
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How do they take to being put on a platter as opposed to just providing eggs,just asking are they noisy when being led to slaughter or complacent ,don’t know about chickens either. In your article you stated their feeling safe means they will stick around their occasional loss of a friend or sibling is ok.
They greatly enjoy being on a platter surrounded by apple and orange slices and roasted in hot drippy butter !
Well you need to use a bit of common sense, when butchering. I know these days that is in very short supply. So first, don’t slaughter and butcher in the chicken or duck yard. Don’t feed the entrails back to the flock. Just use your head!
I think this post presents what could be a problem. If members of flock disappear does that have an adverse affect on the remaining members? Do they still stick around if feed and other duck amenities are still present or does that alarm the flock so that they attempt to seek what is perceived as friendlier territory.?
Do ducks put up a significant fight upon being butchered? Are there tricks to lulling the duck’s struggles. I understand if one covers a chicken’s head so that it can’t see, it remains calm in the slaughter process. I have only watched my father dispatch chickens and he just hung them upside down and cut the jugular vein through their mouth. They flopped and squawked but in my ancient memory of those long ago events, it didn’t seem as if the other chickens paid any attention.
If someone who is presently raising chicken stated that the other chickens took careful note of such proceedings, I would certainly bow to their more current observations.
So inquiring about how ducks react to such a scenario seems like a cogent question to my mind.
And that is why we ask for you to stay where you were ! We do not want your liberal stupidity!! Why did you leave your home ? GO BACK ! or have you screwed it up so bad you did not like it or did not feel safe there ? GO BACK to NY. SF. WA. MN. Where you like minded halfwits can be happy and flourish. Why would you move to the Midwest ?
I liked this article. This is the kind of article that is more helpful to me than cowboy TP. I can use this as a starting point to research for myself if I want to get more into it. I am quite sure the comments will be even more helpful as there will be folks that actually raise ducks and or geese that will add their knowledge and experience.
Keep these coming.
Peace,
MadFab
I have raised chickens ducks geese rabbits cows pigs burrows and horses. I don’t like geese. I did like p hens and guineas for security.
Hey Chuck i see the problem right off the ol bat, LEFT coast is a dead give away! I saw my ducks w/their little suit cases packed and leaving i said where do you think your going! And the leader of the pac said we saw what you did w/out fam/member and it ain’t gonna happen anymore… The one that i had put on the table was a Pekin duck, I caught him peaking thru the window at my wife in da shower and that was the last time he did that!!!
Khaki Campbells are great for laying eggs, but not so much for a nice dressed duck as they are small and skinny. Breeds I personally have seen being good mothers including Swedish ducks, Welsh Harlequins, & Muscovies. Those breeds also make a beautiful duck for the table. Many other breeds are great too. I’m just familiar with the breeds mentioned. Duck fat is amazing in mashed potatoes and there is nothing better to fry potatoes in.
The heeeelllll you say Charles Foley, I’m not feeding my head to noe dang duckss!!!!!!.
I dressed my ducks in tails and bow-ties and they seemed to really love it, lol
Would ducks be better able to cope with temperature extremes than chickens? I’ve read that chickens can be a bit delicate that way.
Also, are they friendlier than chickens?
Ducklings become attached to whatever animal or person cares for them. Usually it’s mama duck, but it could be a dog or a person. The process is called imprinting. My brother rescued a mallard chick that got so attached to him he had to lock it up before driving off or it would fly along behind his truck for a mile or two. I had a goose that got attached to me and would bring the flock to my bedroom window every day at dawn.
At some point in a long term survival situation one is going to have to raise a grain crop to keep domestic animals.
Sebastapole geese are great for down use and said to be quite friendly as well as beautiful. I’ve never raised any but would love to as the photos I’ve seen show very lovely fowls. They were bred for use in goose down pillows, mattresses, and other down items. I really enjoyed reading this article plus all the comments!
We had ducks when I was a teenager. They are much friendlier and seem to be a bit more intelligent than chickens. However, as far as evading predators, we had several ducks become very lame (dislocated hips????) when chased by a dog. Probably would not have happened if they were near a pond and could swim away. Never saw them fly. We had Pekins, the white commercial type grown for table ducks, and only a year or two before ‘progress’ in the form of high taxes forced my parents to sell the farm. So not an expert but just posting my experiences with them. BTW a few years ago, rented a house near a lake, which had semi-tame mallards on it that waddled across everyone’s yards. One hen kept depositing her eggs at random in the yards–not a good indication of parenting. No nest, just an egg here or there. Which I ate LOL. Good and rich and big.
I went to Amazon to look for books on raising ducks. I counted 13 on the first page of a 7 page listing. I didn’t peruse all 7 pages of duck books. Does someone have a recommendation for a best book on raising ducks in an urban setting? Obviously, if I had a 60 acre farm raising ducks would be a non-problem. Having a handkerchief-sized back yard having ducks might prove to be a large problem. The author talks about having 20 ducks. I am afraid 20 ducks in my backyard would put me up to my eyeballs in ducks and I might have one or two neighbors complaining to some civil (or more likely, uncivil public employees). If you start with one breeding pair does in-breeding become a problem?
For the jokesters who are trying out for, but are not quite ready for the Comedy Club circuit, raising small livestock is what is going to keep your family alive in an end of the world situation. Domestic animals such a bovines, goats and sheep will very quickly be killed with most of the meat wasted. Or they will die of neglect. There is a huge feed pen beside I-5 in California. The rumor is that they are McDonald’s hamburgers for the next week. It covers several hundred acres of land and is crammed full of bovines. In an end of the world situation those poor animals will die of neglect. There isn’t enough population in that area (feed pens and population are not a good mix) to utilize all that meat before it is rank and rotten. That is a significant food source that will go almost entirely to waste as coyotes, vultures, rats and other creatures who are not as fastidious as humans consume the meat and thrive. Ducks, chickens, rabbits, geese — the whole panoply of small farm animals and birds will be what stands between surviving peppers and the dead. A bushel basket of dandelion greens won’t provide half the nutrition that a couple of ducks and eggs will supply.
I would like to see serious replies about various breeds such as a couple of contributors have already mentioned. Plus first hand advice from folks who are living like most of us, in suburban or even city locales and who must be cautious about how much livestock we have in our backyards or on our little 15th floor balcony. If you are an urban duck farmer, please detail the problems that you have encountered and how you managed them. How did you handle disposal of waste? How about smell and noise? Ducks don’t crow like a rooster will but they do quack and sometimes quite loudly. How do you handle noise? What are some big problems that haven’t occurred to me, inasmuch as the last time I had a duck I was barely taller than the duck and we had a rather large yard that abutted a wild field that was probably at least a quarter section. The closest neighbor was probably a quarter mile away, so noise from the duck and smell from its droppings weren’t problems. So any problems that might be urban setting specific wouldn’t have been apparent. It’s always nice to know where the alligators are before venturing into the swamp.
Please share your hands on experiences.
The ducks that I have now are in city limits on a postage-stamp lot (0.12 acres). They are foragers and I supplement that with mealworms or other dried bug source. They are pretty happy back there and rarely make noise (unless in adolescence). They are fun and will peck on my back door when they run out of food or water. My kids really enjoy them too…. always “fun” for the 7yo daughter on butchering day….
For quiet ducks go for muskovies. They don’t quack, just hiss a little. Perkins, KCampbells, Indian Runners all are quite load quackers, important in suburbia.
They are bigger so more meat but also proportionally more feeding.
Good layers if you get 1st year ducks. My pair are pensioners now so while I don’t get eggs I do get company. They love greens, the duck still flies occasionally. All are potentially fox dinner without adequate protection. As I hand feed them every day they come when I call even though they have a self feeder with grain.
Hey LCC! Look into Muscovy ducks. There’s forums about raising ducks of various breeds, and for various reasons (meat, eggs, feathers, show, etc.) Best wishes.
Duck eggs are a shell that is a little harder to crack, but boy do they make wonderful omelets, puddings, custards and the best cakes. The yoke is humongous compared to that of a chicken egg. Even a jumbo chicken egg pales in comparison. Here at the local super market tiny partridge, duck and wonderfully colorful Easter-egger chicken eggs are now routinely available.
I have had ducks for a few years now. We have Anconas that don’t really fly…. I have never seen one over 3ft off the ground. We do butcher them from time-to-time. I think that they do get depressed for a day or two as egg production decreases, but otherwise they are fine. They don’t make a ton of noise or fight more than you’d expect during the process. I hardly know they are even there most of the time unless they are going through adolescence and they are discovering their voices or a predator is nearby (they really don’t like rats). They eat banana slugs and are fantastic layers as well.
I reall y don’t care for snakes, Esp their eggs!!! lol
Funny so many of us are worried the flock might need counseling if we kill one of their friends. Like most people with small acreage I have, from time to time raised a couple of steers for the freezer, there are always city friends who want to buy in, it’s easy to do and economical. But I’ll be durned if I can keep an animal 2 years and not get attached to it and give it a name. The last two were Iron Mike and 2 Ton Tony Galento. Iron Mike was split between 3 families, we ate on poor Two Ton Tony for months. Not sure how good a survivalist I’d make. What are some good duck names?
I’m not so worried about psychic damage to the duck flock by the sudden disappearance of one or more of the group as I am about the whole group deciding the other side of the lake looks a lot friendlier since some members have disappeared. Most chickens can’t fly very well. Ducks on the other hand fly quite well and can fly some distances. I know my questions may sound inane to someone who is an old farm hand, but that’s what this list is about to get answerers from folks who are actually living the life.
I don’t want to wait until the lights go out to start learning about barnyard fowl. The time to do the question asking is now hopefully well before the lights go out.
My lot is approximately the size of Shannon’s, so her experience might well be what I could expect. If you had room to raise a steer, you are more rural than I and have more property than I, so your experience wouldn’t relate to my situation at all. I have seen pictures of Chinese folks raising a couple of ducks in cages on their 15th floor balcony in Hong Kong, so I know somehow it can be done, I just don’t know how. That would be a really relevant article for the city/suburban dwellers who follow this list. “How I Raised Ducks on Fifth Avenue in NYC” To sort of paraphrase an oldie song, if you can raise ducks in NYC you can raise ducks anywhere.
https://www.ruralsprout.com.
I like this site, there is a good article on backyard ducks on it. I remember you saying you had a Koi pond, something like that would be perfect for ducks. You could get a small 5×8 storage shed and put a couple square bales of hay inside, cut the wire off the bales and loosen them a bit, makes a good clubhouse for them. Meat ducks are too heavy to fly, egg ducks are good flyers. The deal with ducks, if you get them as chicks and raise them you are the head duck, they are your flock and won’t leave you to go live in the park.
Thanks for posting the url. I went to that site and found a very useful overview of duck raising. I just don’t think I have the backyard for duck raising. Looks like it will be rabbits for me.
After either the bobcat that seems to frequent our backyard or a very large raccoon got the last koi. I removed a portion of the bottom of the koi pond so that standing water (that was when we used to have rain) wouldn’t gather and allow mosquitos to breed. This past year we have had so little rain in our little portion of the coast that I didn’t even get to fill one rain barrel. I think I could replace that portion that I removed should I decide that there were ducks in my life.
As an off topic aside, a friend of mine who raised a fair mix of barnyard animals and fowl on open range in the hills behind our town advises that llamas are very effective in chasing coyotes away from barnyard livestock. Coyotes in SoCal are a problem so having llamas along with other livestock at least takes care of the coyote problem. Don’t know how well they do with bears and mountain lions which are also becoming a problem now that neither species is effectively hunted in the PDRK.
Left Coast Chuck:
Thanks for the mental image of Donald Duck having shed his sailor hat and blue middy shirt for a fedora and pinstripes, belting out “New York, New York” at the top of his lungs…made my day!?
I have 4 ducks currently. 3 one year olds are Call Ducks and the 4th I’ve had for 3 years and is a mix that included Mallard. I love the chickens but ducks are even .more entertaining.
I love roast duck. A lovely rich very dark meat. Mostly siIent but playful. Mine start chattering softly at me when I’m near. Their rich green water in a little pool feeds water into 2 more formed ponds when cIeaning. Pond one will be growing duck weed and cattails. Pond 2 will gather overflow and be growing cattails, duck weed and water rice from India. I may add crayfish and goldfish to pond 2.
Rabbits are also quiet except they scream in pain or terror when predators get them.
I’d like to add more ducks to the mIx.
I’ve never seen ducks, chickens or rabbits react badly to butchering but I don’t butcher in cIose either. I have a butchering and skinning stand set up in a shaddy spot near the back door so it’s close to the kitchen.
Had 2 mallards as pets as a teenager on approx 1 acre but smaller lot would have worked. My neighbor had one. Her duck definitely bonded to her more than mine did, because mine had each other. Like free-range chickens, I would let them out during the day but knowing where their food was they returned every afternoon if they decided to take a short flight around the neighborhood. The only complaints we got was from neighbors who complained about me “calling them home”. I would scream out “quacks” to them, and inevitably they would return to my call. They hardly ever made any noise though. My first set got eaten by a weasel. For second set, we enclosed the top of the pen. As free-range during the day, clean up of their 10x10ft pen was not bad and they had an insulted dog house for shelter.
Perhaps you forgot about one main thing about this ducksy stuff. Life safety!
In order of SHTF & nuclear war scenarios, how to maintain those noisy & stinky ducks while we in our “stealth-mode & oxygen-lacks bunker? TiA!
Some breeds are more noisy than others.
Saifan:
Quote from article – …Some people complain that ducks are messy. If you are keeping your animals in a small enclosed area, I would agree.
But, this article is assuming that you have a small garden or homestead where you will be keeping your ducks. Chicken poop is firmer and more pelletized than duck poop, which is very watery.
Ducks kept in a small enclosure will require that their area is cleaned from time to time to prevent unhygienic circumstances….
In a bunker i would limit my poultry to quail for eggs and meat, assuming I had stored enough food for them.