Ducks will eat all your slugs and snails. Their eggs are rich and delicious, especially in sponges and cakes. They are as noisy as chickens but they are very messy and smelly and make any pond filthy in a matter of seconds. In saying that they are beautiful and funny to watch.
Ducks need some sort of shelter. It can be as basic as a piece of corrugated iron to provide shelter from the sun or rain. You don’t necessarily need a pond, a large water container that allows them to put their heads under will suffice.
Ducks will eat the same grain that chickens eat and will eat grass and weeds if allowed to free range. They are very useful in a mini-orchard eating fallen fruit and fertilising the area. As domestic ducks can’t fly it is easy to pen them using chicken wire and wooden stakes. They rarely suffer from any disease.
