With bread, chips, crisps and other human junk food definitely not appropriate foods for ducks, what should you be feeding wild ducks in the UK?
Many of the “safe for ducks” food lists you can find on the internet echo this list from the Canal & River Trust:
- Sweetcorn (tinned, fresh or frozen…once defrosted!)
- Lettuce (ripped up into small pieces),
- Peas (fresh or frozen)
- Oats
- Seeds (garden bird seed, or seeds from the health foods section of a supermarket)
- Rice (leftover cooked rice – not sugar coated rice pops!)
Unfortunately, as good for ducks as this list is, grabbing a loaf of stale bread on the way to the park is just too quick and easy for some to bother getting some peas out of the freezer and decanting them into a suitable bag. It may only be ever-so-slightly less convenient, but that could be making all the difference.
Also, whilst garden bird seed is said to be okay for ducks, we tried it and it sinks, rapidly. In shallow water, some ducks will upend themselves to fish it from the bottom, but many seemed to just look at us with a “what are you doing?” kind of look. This leads some people to scatter it on land, but encouraging ducks to leave the water and head towards people….and their dogs…..doesn’t seem the best.
In a bid to provide something that’s both safe for ducks and convenient for duck feeders, Quack Snacks has created ready portioned bags of floating wild duck food without any plastic packaging. They provide a nutritious snack for our feathered quacking friends and are sized to help you avoid overfeeding and be easier to carry around in bags and pockets.
It’s really important to note that whatever nutritious duck-safe snack you choose, you should avoid offering our quacking friends too much – it’s about striking a balance between the value to you of interacting with the ducks and leaving them to get on with their own natural feeding too.