An accessible and family-friendly activity is to feed ducks a snack. While most often associated with tossing bits of bread into a pond, ultimately, ducks might be better served with a different type of food.
Ducks are omnivorous birds who forage widely and ingest most anything that looks interesting. An adult duck can consume about two cups of food every day, but can ducks eat, say, avocados—below we will dive into what is nutritious for ducks to ingest.
Usually, wild ducks eat naturally occurring grains, aquatic plants, and minor bugs. A wild duck’s diet is nutritionally balanced.
While occasional treats are lovely, overfeeding toxic substances could shorten the lifespan of wild or domestic ducks. Much of a domestic duck’s diet is similar to wild ducks, but usually, a domestic duck receives nutrition from pet-shop-produced grit and mill.
Many people question can ducks eat bread because many feed ducks leftovers, but here you’ll discover that bread is not always good for ducks.
Whether you visit ducks in their natural habitat or you are creating a safe space for domestic ducks to live, understanding which foods are best for your waddling friends is vital.
If you have given your wild or domestic duck bread, leftovers or cracker crumbs, it is not the end of the world. While the “junk food” will not hurt a duck in small and infrequent amounts, learning what foods a duck can safely ingest is best.
When in doubt about when or what to be feeding a duck, consult with a certified and specialized veterinarian. As such, here are eight food items that ducks should not often ingest:
1. Bread
The most shocking item on the list is bread. Most everyone has a specific memory of tearing off pieces of bread and throwing them towards a swimming duck.
A little bit of bread will not harm the duck in the short term; however, if the diet continues, the duck will fill themselves on bread instead of eating other needed nutrients.
Bread can fatten a duck which can be fatal. In limited amounts, whole grain slices of bread are fine in moderation.
Additionally, ensuring that ducks have plenty of land and water to walk and swim can provide needed exercise to offset serving ducks carbohydrate-based snacks.
What’s more, like humans, when ducks taste something new, filled with processed sugars, the ducks will become addicted to that food.
If a duck expects to receive bread on a specific schedule, the animal might stop its normal foraging, which provides diverse nutritional value, and wait to be served bread.
2. Crackers
In the same way, bread is not nutritious for ducks, but can ducks eat crackers? Crackers fall into that same category. Composed of flour, salt, and sugar, a duck will eat their fill of this bread and miss out on other needed nutrients.
Like children prefer ice cream over broccoli, ducks will waddle or swim over to cracks, and in moderation, sharing your food might not be wrong. Remember to offer crackers in moderation.
Crackers, like other foods with salinity or excess glucose, cause rapid weight gain. Sadly, the additional weight can add strain to their legs.
Crackers are notoriously salt, and ducks can die of a salt overdose. If you share crackers consisting of whole-grain or oats, this option is a much better treat for a duck and can be freely shared.
A good rule of thumb is to share food that has little processing from its original state. For instance, sharing corn kernels, fresh off the cob or directly from a can, is an excellent option for ducks!
3. Onions
Can ducks eat onions? Offering duck slices or chunks of onions can cause severe digestive issues like diarrhea or vomiting.
If a duck continuously eats onions in an extreme situation, a condition known as hemolytic anemia can result in death. Once a duck is affected by this disease, its red blood cells are destroyed quicker than created.
In the same vein, ducks should not ingest a large amount of garlic since it is in the same family as onions and could result in similar medical issues.
4. Citrus Fruit
Citrus fruit can hinder a ducks’ ability to digest calcium resulting in thin-shelled eggs, often resulting in fewer hatchlings. While the problem with eggs is the primary issue with a duck ingesting citrus fruit, oranges, lemons, and grapefruits can cause acid reflux and stomach pain.
Additionally, mangoes can cause throat itchiness in ducks, identical to the allergy in humans. If a duck does ingest a mango but shows no discomfort, continued mango consumption should be allowable.
Many fruits and vegetables do not affect calcium absorption or egg-shell thickness, including watermelon, honeydew, bananas, kale, carrots, and beets, to name a few. If a duck seems ill after eating a specific fruit or vegetable, discontinue feeding.
5. Moldy Foods
Avoid feeding wild or domestic ducks noticeably stale, rotten, or moldy foods. Can ducks eat moldy bread?Moldy bread could contain a fungus called aspergillus spp, which can poison ducks and cause upper respiratory issues—often, ingestion of this fungal bacteria is deadly to ducks.
While your goal might be to eliminate food waste, disposing of foods that are not fit for human consumption via feeding scraps to ducks is not a good plan. Instead, consider composting food waste. Composting can produce excellent fertilizer and can help you live a more sustainable life.
6. Large Nuts or Seeds
Ducks do not ingest larger nuts or seeds well. If a duck tries to have this type of snack, it could choke.
Ducks swallow food whole. If you want to feed nuts and seeds to a duck, grind the nuts smaller.
If you would like to feed a duck some various types of protein, cooked eggs, dried mealworms, crickets, and minnows are healthy alternatives.
Additionally, most seeds designed for wild birds are suitable for ducks as well, so sharing remaining bits from your backyard bird feeder is perfectly acceptable!
7. Some Vegetables
Spinach
Spinach disrupts calcium absorption causing soft-shelled eggs. If a duck eats spinach sporadically, then the bird can benefit from the nutrition of spinach and not its harmful properties.
Spinach seems like a very healthy option for ducks, but unfortunately, Popeye the Sailor Man should keep all the spinach for himself.
Iceberg Lettuce
Primarily, iceberg lettuce has little nutritional value. If eaten by ducks, iceberg lettuce causes diarrhea.
Ducks enjoy leafy greens, so instead of iceberg lettuce, consider feeding ducks cabbage, kale, or collards. Iceberg lettuce has high water content, so a duck might feel the need to eat a considerable amount to feel full, leading to digestive issues, including vomiting and diarrhea.
Potatoes
White potatoes, rhubarb, green tomatoes, and eggplant are part of the nightshade family. While it might be appealing to set aside the skin of a peeled potato, saving it for ducks could be a misstep.
All of which should not be fed to ducks; every piece of those vegetable places is toxic, including the leaves and stems.
On the other hand, sweet potatoes are a great source of vitamins and nutrients safe for ducks.
Sharing sweet potatoes is an excellent alternative to white potatoes. It will cause none of the adverse effects of those vegetables since, interestingly, sweet potatoes are not in the nightshade family.
Beans
Uncooked or dried beans can be lethal to ducks, but fresh or sprouted beans are safe for ducks to ingest. If you are not sure if your beans have been dried, better find another treat for your duck friend.
Sprouted beans are a good option because the energy required to produce a sprout reduces the starch from the bean. Sprouting also breaks down phytate, a phytic acid that usually decreases the absorption of vitamins and minerals.
8. Avocado
Every part of the avocado plant, both the fruit and its shell, is toxic to ducks. Many fruit pits, like the one inside an avocado, include small amounts of cyanide.
While death from ingesting one single pit is rare, if you are concerned, remove pits and seeds from apricots, cherries, peaches, and plums before serving to ducks.
What Should You Feed Your Ducks Instead?
It is still possible and fun to carry a bag of snacks to the shoreline to feed ducks and watch them enjoy the snack. Can ducks eat brown bread? Instead of reaching for that bag of old bread, instead save foods like corn, watermelon, oats, or broccoli for ducks.
If you live by the water and have the fantastic opportunity to feed ducks habitually or if you have a flock of domestic ducks of your own, a best practice is to purchase mill, seeds, or pellets from a reputable pet or feed store. Pet stores even sell worms and dried worms, which can be offered as a special treat for your duck friends.
It is certainly possible to continue the family-friendly adventure of walking to a body of water and feeding ducks on a sunny afternoon.
Simply remember to grab options other than bread and consult with this list or other experts on which food items might harm the ducks you care about. So, go ahead, grab a head of broccoli or a container of rolled oats and walk down to the water!