Feeding the ducks

Please don’t feed the ducks bread!

Feeding ducks is often a family favoriite activity. Unfortunately feeding ducks bread is widely considered to cause more harm than good.

Bread is like junk food for ducks. It has very little nutritional value yet they love it! If eaten in morderation bread does little harm. However, if you consider the ducks at local ponds that are eating bread not just from your family but the families that visit before and after you, you can see that before long the birds have eaten much more bread than they should.

What problems can bread cause?

Malnutrition

Birds that fill up on bread are not eating enough of their normal diet and so are missing out on important vitamins and minerals. This can lead to abnormalities in chicks and duckilings such as weak and deformed bones.

Small birds need lots for energy to keep warm and to fend for themselves. It is possible that if they fill up on bread they do not have room for the high energy foods (seeds,insects) necessary to keep them warm during the cold winter nights or to escape from predators. 

Gut problems

Birds as their digestive tracts were not designed to cope with bread. Dry bread in particular can swell up inside a bird and cause blockages which can sometimes be fatal.             Bread can also become impacted in birds'crops, which can lead to infection and death.

What problems can feeding birds in general cause?

Behaviour

• Birds can become tame and confident around people. This can make them vulnerable to attacks from pets and cruelty from other people. They too can become aggressive towards people.          
• Large birds can become more aggressive and dominant over small or young birds.            
• Birds can become dependant on being hand fed and chicks and ducklings do not learn how to forage for themselves. 
• Ducks will also tend to crowd around popular feeding spots making those spots a breeding ground for disease and bacterial infections.

Wild ducks and birds can live a longer, healthier life by eating their natural food such as plants, seeds, and insects rather than taking handouts from well-meaning humans.

We do understand that some people will still really want to continue this family activity and so if you are intending to continue feeding them please feed them only very small amounts and use these healthier alternatives:

• Lettuce and other leafy greens
• Cracked corn, oats, or other grains
• Grated vegetables and fruit
• Frozen peas that have been defrosted
• Why not let your kids dig up some worms from your garden?
• Or what about doing your garden a favour and collect some snails, slaters and earwings. (First make sure you have not used chemicals in your garden recently!)