If you’re looking for outdoor activity ideas to encourage your children to love animals you can’t go far wrong with feeding wild ducks at your local lake or park.
One of the first nature encounters that many toddlers and children experience is feeding bread to the ducks. It’s a brilliant way to spark their interest in birds, nature and wildlife.
You don’t need to live in the country and it’s a great outdoor activity for all the family, whatever the weather.
But is it good for the birds and what do ducks eat?
The joy of duck feeding! Muscovys at Hackthorne, Lincolnshire
Did you know that bread can be bad for birds and the water they live in? (we’re feeding duck seed in these photos)
What do wild ducks eat?
In the wild the natural diet of ducks and geese is pond weed and other aquatic vegetation as well as seeds, small insects and worms and small water snails. Larger birds will even eat amphibians and crustaceans like crayfish!
Is bread really bad for ducks?
I first learnt that bread can be bad for ducks and geese in 2011 (Caroline was under two!) when ‘No Bread-Feeding’ signs appeared on the bank of a local lake and the visitor centre started selling wild bird seed in paper bags.
It seemed like a money-making ploy on behalf of the park but in fact proved to be a worthy conservation exercise.
The sign explains all.
Too much bread really is bad for ducks, geese, swans, watercourses and all wild birds.
Why is bread bad for ducks?
Bread offers poor nutrition to birds, it can reduce their natural behaviour and creates water pollution.
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- Bread, particularly white bread, offers unbalanced nutrition and insufficient calories in winter
- It may make birds feel full when they haven’t actually eaten enough causing malnourishment
- It may affect their behaviour, reducing natural foraging for the right food
- Overfeeding can result in rotten bread creating bacteria and algae that pollute the water, poisoning birds and aquatic life
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Read on to find out what to feed ducks instead of bread. It turns out that there are lots of things that are much better for them.
What to feed ducks responsibly
If your local park doesn’t sell seed, what can ducks eat safely instead of bread?
The Canal and River Trust recommend these foods for wild ducks: –
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- Sweetcorn, tinned, fresh or frozen (defrosted first)
- Lettuce, ripped up
- Frozen peas, defrosted
- Oats, flapjacks and instant porridge oats
- Seeds from the pet shop or supermarket
- Rice, cooked or uncooked
- QuackSnacks – responsible, convenient wild duck pellets
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NB Seeds don’t always float so scatter on the ground or in shallow water within swans’ reach.
For more information download their duck guide and see links at the bottom of the page on what food to buy.
Try environmentally friendly QuackSnacks
Another great option is Quacksnacks. I recently discovered them through The Canal and River Trust and love their child-sized packs of wild duck pellets, delivered direct to your door.
QuackSnacks provide balanced nutrition combining wheat, maize, soya, fish meal, vegetable oil, vitamins & minerals which ducks and geese seem to love.
Quacksnacks reduce plastic waste
Even better, Quacksnacks are attempting to reduce plastic waste with new packaging. Kids of the Wild got to try them out first!
Their new packets are made from 100% recyclable pure pine wood cellulose (similar to greaseproof paper) with cardboard delivery boxes using a 60% bio-based packing tape.
We water-and-duck-tested the pellets with wild kids of all ages and the conclusion is:-
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- Ducks love them
- Kids love them too!
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Try Quacksnacks or any of the other food options above but whatever you do, please don’t feed bread to ducks.
Wild wishes for fun family encounters when you take your children to feed the ducks!
More inspiration
To find out what you need to know about feeding and caring for wild birds in the garden read my year-round garden bird feeding guide
Encourage garden birds by making this easy coconut bird feeder.
Learn how to hang a nestbox to attract birds to nest in your garden.
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Buy duck food and accessories
Click on the images to purchase on Amazon.
Here on the farm we request the guests don’t feed our ducks bread for these reasons, I’ll have to double check that your list matches the list we have in our property booklets. Encouraging awareness is a great way to help keep our nations ducks and waterways in better shape. Quack Snacks sounds like such a great company, ideal for you and Caroline to get out and enjoy feeding the ducks again with food you know they’ll enjoy and will keep them healthy!
Thanks for linking up with me on #CountryKids.
A lot of people already know about the bread issue but it’s so easy to grab a stale loaf that it could be a hard habit to change. Raising awareness is a great help. I’ve seen grapes suggested as duck food too but it said sliced with pips removed! I didn’t include it as most people wouldn’t bother doing that for themselves let alone for ducks!!!
We’ve seen a few dog owners take issue with the “grapes for ducks” advice – apparently grapes are bad for dogs. However, it seems more a concern if they’re left on land for dogs to pick up, rather than being scattered on the water. We’re yet to take grapes on a picnic and have any left for hungry ducks!
Thanks again for testing out the new plastic free packs – your feedback was invaluable!
Great point re grapes, they are poisonous to some dogs but it hadn’t crossed my mind. Might add an edit to that effect. Glad to help with the plastic feedback, anything that reduces the stuff is worth working on in my book and it was fun too. Well done you guys for being proactive about it. BTW this is my most shared post so far, so word is getting round!
Quack snacks are a great idea and we only found out about bread last year so use oats now too! We have great fun laying out the food on the grass x #CountryKids
It’s great to hear so many people already know about this. Oats are perfect. Thanks for stopping by
I haven’t taken the boys to feed the ducks for ages. Partly because I wasn’t sure what to feed them, as we had been told bread was bad for them. Good to know we can try all these bits out. Thank you will come in really handy x #CountryKids
Glad it’s proved useful for you!
Lovely post, it’s so much about educating from young ages and getting the right messages across early! Feeding the birds right, reducing plastic use and pollution also very dear to us! However where me personally I feel very guilty whenever admiring geese and ducks is foie gras….weakness of mine from my Paris days…trying to limit it though just to few treat /occasions per year..#countrykids
Totally agree about starting kids young, not with you on the Fois Gras though but good work on trying to cut it back!! Thanks for reading
stunning your all pictures and article too really nice thanks for sharing n keep it up thanks a lot…….!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed reading
Excellent post and, with the current cold spell, very timely. It will be a hard message to get across to everyone so hopefully good signs and explanations will help. A great post for #GoingGreen and I hope you’ll be able to join me for the next one on March 5th
Ooh thanks Rosie, I’ll make a note for the 5th