slug control: ducks in the garden

http://www.permies.com

A lot of gardeners struggle with slugs. Slugs will eat all of a garden, in some areas, if left unchecked. And yet, ducks love to eat slugs! So this is definitely an organic slug control method.

I have tried on about four previous occassions to get video of ducks or geese eating slugs, but the video always turned out iffy: you couldn't quite see it. Or the ducks/geese go squeemish - so they were so far away you couldn't see them eat the slugs in the video.

I kept trying and eventually ended up with this excellent video footage.

First we hear from Jen Davis, of Portland, Oregon. This is just a tiny bit that she had to say about controlling slugs. She expresses that she doesn't like to kill slugs without purpose. Having the ducks eat the slugs makes her much more comfortable. She talks about how her chickens weren't all that interested in eating slugs. With her current ducks, they eat so many slugs, that she now breeds slugs to feed to her ducks!

Samantha from Woodinville, Washington feeds HUGE slugs to her ducks. We get really good video of the ducks eating the slugs out of her hand.

That is a huge woodpecker at the end.

Bill Mollison, the inventor of permaculture, is famous for saying something like "you don't have an excess of slugs, you have a duck deficiency."

Relevant threads at permies:
http://www.permies.com/t/9990/critter-care/sorts-ducks-slug-control
http://www.permies.com/t/609/critter-care/slugs
http://www.permies.com/t/4268/organic-sustainable-practices/Organic-Slug-Control

music by Jimmy Pardo

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• duck
• slug
• slug control
• eco
• green
• permaculture
• organic
• sustainability

[questforbalance]

how do you create a slugarium?

[paulwheaton12]

@questforbalance I have no idea. If you post a question in the forums at permies, I will see if I can get Jen to respond.

[DrGaryGreen]

PW: You make the best vids on the best stuff.

[anything4you05]

You hated killing them...now you raise them to have ducks kill them hahaha

[Helmholz42]

@Jefferdaughter Well, one COULD see it that way. I thought she was being much too hard on herself for having killed a slug. It would be unrealistically principled of her to equate all other animal life to human life.

[Jefferdaughter]

@Helmholz42 -That is a lot like saying that the people Hitler killed were slugs, isn't it?

[Chris153758]

Those are cool-looking ducks... What kind are they?

[smiguet]

My chickens eat snakes...so they will probably like slugs too..lol.

[junbanzai]

i see daffy, i see donald, i see

[apples13able]

The poor little slugs! Raised to be food! What kind of life is that? Those ducks are like huge Dinosaurs to a slug! The terror! And what about that poor baby slug?

[Helmholz42]

This woman compared herself to Hitler for having killed a garden slug? Oh, no no no.

[jimmie200]

Those are pretty ducks.