What do ducks like to eat? What should they eat? (1 Viewer)

I know that bread is not good for ducks and other waterfowl. In the summer my local ducks liked sunflower seeds. Now it's cold and snowy, but when today we wanted to feed some coots and ducks with sunflower seeds, they weren't very enthusiastic about it. Why is it so? Do they prefer something else, or are they just conserving energy?

I began to suspect that people feeding them bread got them hooked up on bread, and now they prefer junk food

katastrofa said:

I began to suspect that people feeding them bread got them hooked up on bread, and now they prefer junk food

Click to expand...

Almost certainly, yes :-C

It is sweet, filling, addictive, and rots their teeth and gives them fatty degeneration of the liver.

Same effect as on people.

||

katastrofa said:

I know that bread is not good for ducks and other waterfowl. (

Click to expand...

Pardon my bluntness but I don’t think you “know” that bread is bad for birds but simply “think” it. Unless, that is, you can point to peer-reviewed science in support of your opinion.

fugl said:

Pardon my bluntness but I don’t think you “know” that bread is bad for birds but simply “think” it. Unless, that is, you can point to peer-reviewed science in support of your opinion.

Click to expand...

Good point!
Afaik there is some evidence that feeding birds in winter reduces fitness, but I've not seen any evidence that indicts bread. There is of course argument that the ducks don't get their adequate complement of worms and invertebrates when they chow down on handouts, but they seem to do pretty well despite that from what I can see.

If it is true, chopped raw vegetables, grain, bird seed and poultry feed seem to be alternatives.
https://www.thespruce.com/what-to-feed-ducks-386584
(This website, too has some suspicious statements, e.g. that bread has no nutritional value alternating with that bread causes excessive breeding. It looks contradictory).

However, it could be one of these urban tales which knock around for years, because nobody cares to verify it. I never seen any actual proof that wild ducks suffer from eating bread. Domestic ducks fed nothing but bread might, but wild Mallards move freely to wild habitats and presumably can balance their diet. Ducklings might suffer, but without alternative food in city waters ducklings die from starvation anyway.

Feeding ducks and geese certainly can cause pollution of small ponds with faeces and death of other water life. However feeding with other food would cause the same problem.

One could make also a study on what activities cause most people to get interest in nature - and feeding ducks as a child would rank pretty high .