Just don't feed wild animals
49would a cat count as a wild animal
4I would argue that cats aren’t exactly domesticated. More like tamed perhaps.
1
What about feeding a wild thang
1
I keep seeing this but as far as I can tell the only study on the subject seems to show that it has no effect on their normal grazing patterns and that both domesticated and wild ducks heavily fed bread spend 90% of their time "naturally grazing"
https://absa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Cor-Vol-35-Pg101_106-Ducks.pdf
22It's basically just duck junk food. https://www.uu.nl/en/background/what-to-feed-ducks-according-to-science Probably not an issue if they don't get too much, and still get plenty of good quality food in. I'd still rather give them something good for them, but I'm glad it's not as terrible as it seems.
22Totally agree, it's just that there is a lot of pearl clutching when it comes to this topic and we need a more balanced approach.
A little bit of bread is not going to hurt them, but maybe there are some other options that are better. But if they get fed some bread, probably don't need to have an aggressive confrontation about it
11
Right? Let us be the fun uncles and aunts that spoil our duck nibblings with junk food. We don't get to see them enough as it is.
1
In my defense, the only time I gave ducks bread was one time a gang of them surrounded me. One started biting/pecking my toe while the other was jumping up snatching at the sandwich I was eating. It was ducking extortion!!
19That's fair, I'd probably throw the sandwich and run.
3
Idk I tried to feed ducks with some frozen peas, and those fuckers just spat them out.
13Just like people, some like them, some don't! I usually let them thaw first, so I'm not sure if they'd like them still frozen. Maybe that was a factor?
There's these two identical swans at the local park named Tom & Jerry that have been there for years. One of them loves peas and will gobble them straight from your hand (if they know and trust you,) but the other one will go to eat whatever you're giving them from your hand, see/smell that it's peas, and their head flies back and they violently shakes their head like "NOPE!" It's hilarious! I love those goobers.
10
You get little cans of peas that you can keep in your car in case of duck sightings
12I would love to explain my Emergency Peas to people who saw them.
17Based on the meme in a freezer you have in your car as it seems it must be frozen peas otherwise they will fight you to death.
2I should explain, due to my experience in this matter. Frozen peas are better, simply because they float. Canned peas sink, so you can only throw a few at a time
That said, I've seen what I am sure was a duck getting brain-freeze from the frozen ones. Can't be sure but I didn't imagine the stinkeye
3
All we are saying, is give peas a chance.
1
as a treat, many ducks love blueberries! it shouldn't be their main food though. I had a duck that would go wild for blueberries.
12I thought the reason they say not to feed ducks bread was because they would get used it and flock to city centers.
9Mainly they flock to bakeries. Once they've tried the artesianal stuff they come up with all kinds of crazy hijinks to get it. It's really a nuisance.
21
what if I feed them human flesh?
8Just be careful; once they get a taste for man, that's all they'll want from then on.
7
the ducks round here go wild for oats
cheap as hell too7i saw this problem with pigeons too, in the cities most of them are malnourished (diarrhea, which got better with seeds). If you ever go to the countryside you'll see they have much better health. Next time i go to a city i'll make sure to give corn or seeds to ducks as well!
7Isn't all bird excrement diarrhea? They excrete from a cloaca that is both feces and urine mixed, so it's liquid.
3From personal experience no. Also google gives me diarrea in pigeons as a symptom of disease, not as normal stuff
2
What about mealworms
5Mealworms are the shit! It's like my milkshake bringing all the birbs to my yard.
5
We have signs saying the same all around our local park. It seems to stop no one :(
4I’ve obviously changed this habit but my grandma taught us that the first and last piece of bread in the loaf was the “bird bread” and she would take
us out to feed the birds with it.I imagine others were taught something similar and we haven’t all caught up to how bad it is.
1It's not really that bad though, like people make out it's killing ducks and ruining ecosystems but none of the studies show that, they've even shown that for urban ducks it can help give nutrition that they're lacking due to the built up environment.
I really think this is just a viral message started by anti-bread natural health obsessives, like bread is processed and unnatural therefore must be bad for you and even worse for animals - when studies showed that ducks were fine digesting bread the justification came that the reason not to do it was that bread will pollute rivers and causes a cascade of doom but again this was demonstrated to be totally untrue and so the story changed again to say ducks can eat bread but it makes them lazy, which again there's no evidence of - now it seems to be trapped in a very vague 'it's not their natural food and if they only eat bread then that would be bad so really is better to feed them something else in the same way eating bread isn't the best thing for humans but has been a staple for thousands of years and it pretty good in a balanced diet, certainly better than malnutrition'
I always see stuff like 'bread isn't their natural food, feed them grapes, peas, nuts, seeds' like grapes or peas are something ducks regularly eat or a handful of seeds isn't every bit as bad if they get lazy and don't eat anything else beside the easy seeds (which there's no evidence of)
urban ponds with lots of duck feedings on bread don't have obvious problems, you'd think by now someone would have attached statistics or studies to this message but there isn't any, I've read up on it a couple of times and never found any, all the serious authorities like the rspb seem to agree that it's not really a problem but in theory there are circumstances where it could be suboptimal... While also agreeing that in some situations, urban winter for example, feeding ducks is really important and if the choice is bread or nothing then bread is by far the best choice.
It's fine and good to feed ducks stuff that isn't bread and it's great to be breaking the weird thing of only feeding ducks bread, varied diet is important.. but if you see someone feeding them bread then don't go off at them because it's bit really a problem.
7
What nutes do those foods have that the bread does not? Isn't white bread usually enriched?
2Bread is a good and easy source of carbs. Even if it has other nutrients, the duck is going to be consuming far more carbs than it should. While the other things have carbs, they aren't nearly as bio-available. It's like drinking juice that's had a bunch of sugar added and thinking it's healthy because it's juice. Carbs are the thing that'll make you fat, regardless of what other nutrients come with it.
5Corn: probably the Potassium
Lettuce: water. That's honestly why we use lettuce in human food. Well that and the crunch.
Seeds: protien/fat
Peas: some potassium, iron, vitamin B6, and vitamin C
Oats: good carb/fiber/protein balance
Source: Chef that isn't fat. I'm not skinny either, but I know enough about the nutritional content of the foods I make to graze without getting more than a little chub
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