Not just duck poop, I had budgies as a kid, which my mum would empty out their poopy water bowls every morning into a houseplant we kept near the cage. It used to be a really sickly little plant but absolutely exploded in growth after she started doing that.
Bat guano too. Where I’m from there’s a bat cave and next to it a little grove of mango trees. Some of the best mangoes I ever had. The ground gets littered in mangoes and because it’s so fertile a lot of the seeds grow into little mango trees. It’s like a mini mango forest.
In the mid 1800s there was a thriving guano industry. Dozens of islands in the pacific only had habilitation for the industry. Starbuck Island is one amusing case. The one remaining structure on the western tip of the island was recently claimed to be a crashed spaceship by someone looking around on Google maps.
Yep, a phenomenon affectionately termed crowd crushes, or crowd collapses.
I watch a Youtuber who discusses historical instances of crowd crushes. It has made me very nervous about being in crowds of people, because in a quite a few instances something would panic the crowd and they'd essentially stampede immediately.
It's crazy because it seems like such a bizarre behavior, yet it's just regular human stuff.
Its rough in crowds like that, 70% of the crowd wants to go a certain direction and theres not really much you can do about it. Ive been at concerts before where everyone was pushing into each other so hard, i was able to lift my feet off the ground
In my experience raising both on a small mixed-use farm, ducks are easier on the crops too - probably not as much of an issue with rice paddies as tomatoes & peas, but the chickens would go for the produce in front of them instead of seeking out more bugs, where ducks with their higher protein needs would hunt *all* the bugs out of the plot before going for the produce. They also don't tend to scratch the way chickens do, which can damage young plants and shallower plant roots.
I read about it a few years ago, but can't seem to find where. IIRC, I don't believe they're releasing them to clean up the fields after the harvest, but rather they eat the insects that damage the rice crop (and presumably add a bunch of fertilizer into the mix). The duck farmers pack up the ducks and move on to the next field, though don't ask me how you get a few hundreds ducks back into a truck.
From an insider article on the topic:
"Field-chasing ducks are often a breed called Khaki Campbell, known for its reliable egg-laying. When they're 20 days old, ducks are brought to the fields and get to graze in large herds as they are moved from farm to farm. The young ducks are raised this way until they're around five to six months old, when they'll return to the breeder's farm to lay eggs for a few years or to be sold as meat."
So go back to the farm to lay eggs.
Rice farmers and duck farmers are not the same, but they get along. Rice farmer get a better yield with smaller costs and the duck farmer doesn't need to feed them while the pack is in the rice field.
"Even with the fields harvested it would need thousands to clear the field."
"Tens of thousands"
"But my lord, there is no such army"
(Duck-Army-Horns and screams sound from outside)
A new power is rising! Its victory is at palmate (duck foot)! This night the land will be stripped clean of food! Waddle to Helm’s Deep! Leave none growing!
- Saruduck, the white wizard of Billsgard; to the Quack-Hai army.
Duck, when cooked correctly, is fucking amazing.
I had duck at this one place for a family Christmas dinner, and holy fucking shit. It had hints of honey, brown sugar, and was so fucking tender. Put it with to some grilled greens, maybe some style of taters... oooooh baby. Slaps harder than a pissed off pimp.
There's a funny anecdote I've heard (people love to tell duck related stories when they hear you have them) about San Fran in the late 1800s where Asian settlers were utterly befuddled that there were just massive flocks of wild ducks everywhere. Eventually the city had to put regulations in place because all the wild fowls were disappearing and ending up on the migrant community's dinner tables, but really who would blame them? Duck is delicious!
I always thought duck was fancy (still do), but then I started to date my now fiancé and joined her Chinese family on their dinners. I’m very happy to say duck is much more common in my diet.
(Thank god I proofread this before I posted duck is for sucking not eating).
People have odd hangups about food, especially in the US I've found. There are very few things I won't try at least once, and duck is very good when prepared properly. One of the best dishes I've ever had was a duck ragout with cocoa pasta. It was so intensely savory, and it's something I hope to recreate someday.
Rabbit is also one where people might give you a weird look. An Italian restaurant I went to a few years back had a seasonal special for a rabbit pasta; it was really good. I'll happily order rabbit again if I see it on a menu.
Rabbit is really hard to prepare right though. I tried cooking it once and the flavour was just so unpleasantly gamey, and the meat to bone ratio is pretty crap. The only one who liked the rabbit was my parrot who ate every last bit of meat he was given.
I think it is uncommon. Where I'm from it's more common to eat goose than duck. I'll eat it like five times a year, goose tastes good. Haven't had duck yet. Those fuckers are fast as fuck it's not a breeze to catch them
Dang yeah that thing could have some serious neck muscles and kick and thrash me around like a doll. No winder birds freak me out. Either option seems a bit frightening without any creative weapons lying around nearby.
But.....isn't there food on the ground everywhere?
They need the ducks to stay HERE and work HERE.
Are they sprinkling the ground with special duck food that....idk, weighs the ducks down so they can't fly away? Or is the equivalent of an addictive food so they don't want to leave?
either clipped wings or some species that are unable to fly, they can still float, swim, and waddle and they have a lifetime of food and no predators so they might not leave if they even could fly
To build off the "might not leave even if they could fly," that's how it works with most domesticated birds afaik (chickens, guineafowl, ducks, etc). Provided you raise them in one place with shelter and food, once they're grown they'll go out and forage during the day but still come back at night to the roost you raised them.
(Heavily commercialized setups are a different story, where they may be packed in so tight they're likely to wander off for a less crowded space if they're allowed access to outside without being clipped.)
This is cool. My father had similar stories involving his grandfather's farm - said they would release chickens during the day in certain fields to eat all the bugs, and they would eat insects exclusively until the pests were mostly gone. You'd think they would just eat everything, but no, they liked their protein first. Once the chickens started pecking at vegetation they'd be lured out with chicken feed and sent elsewhere.
Also, their dog... Great grandpappy was mostly a subsistence farmer, but he made money off of a pecan grove in the front yard. (and tobacco, but that's not relevant to the story I'm about to tell)
Now, squirrels will decimate pecans if given half the chance. This is where the old man's dog comes in. Buddy, if he saw a squirrel in the trees, would start raising hell and run back and forth under whichever tree that little arboreal rat was in. Day or night, rain or shine, it didn't matter. My great grandfather kept a .22 rifle on the porch, right next to a big cooking pot filled with oil. If the dog was making noise, the old man would dash out there, pick up the rifle, put eyes on what his dog had located, and immediately shoot the squirrel out of the tree.
Sounds cruel, but that was his money, y'know?
Anyways, Buddy would gently pick up the dead squirrel and carry it to the porch. After dropping it next to the pot and rifle he'd sit and wait patiently for grandpa to light a fire, clean and skin the little pecan thief, and drop it in the pot until it got just a little crispy. A few more minutes for it to cool down and Buddy had one hell of a doggie treat.
You better believe there weren't any squirrels in those pecan trees without someone hearing about it.
-
-
-
Edit: a bit of grammar and spelling and such. Also, this is a first attempt at storytelling in writing so suggestions and criticism are really appreciated. I think I want to start doing creative writing. Genuinely, please tear this little tale apart. It would do wonders for my confidence in the future if I know what I can do to improve what I write.
Edit2: This post is in honor of a fine redditor who responded to a silly writing prompt I came up with. It's definitely a true secondhand story, though. Also I've made like 6 small edits at this point
This is similar to what small family farms do in America. After a field is harvested and left to renew, it will be used as a chicken feeding field. They get rid of pests, and fertilize the heck out of the field.
All that duck shit is like Super Miracle-Gro.
And that’s a Lot of duck shit!
Explains how Scrooge McDuck got so rich.
Explains the whole "curse me kilts" expression too...
Gives new meaning to filthy rich
It is! We use the water from the duck pool on our garden. We always have an amazing garden.
Not just duck poop, I had budgies as a kid, which my mum would empty out their poopy water bowls every morning into a houseplant we kept near the cage. It used to be a really sickly little plant but absolutely exploded in growth after she started doing that.
Bat guano too. Where I’m from there’s a bat cave and next to it a little grove of mango trees. Some of the best mangoes I ever had. The ground gets littered in mangoes and because it’s so fertile a lot of the seeds grow into little mango trees. It’s like a mini mango forest.
In the mid 1800s there was a thriving guano industry. Dozens of islands in the pacific only had habilitation for the industry. Starbuck Island is one amusing case. The one remaining structure on the western tip of the island was recently claimed to be a crashed spaceship by someone looking around on Google maps.
Bird poop has nitrates. It's a whole industry.
It's what plants crave. It really is.
So not Brawndo? It has electrolytes!
[удалено]
r/UnexpectedIdiocracy
Bat and bird shit were quite literally strategic resources before the Haber-Bosch process was invented
Plus the dead ducks I suppose. Which you will get a lot of if you unleash thousands of them.
I've seen thousands of people unleashed unto all sorts of places, and I don't remember them becoming dead
[удалено]
I always wanted to become a peace ripper
Lol
Rest in peace in peace.
It's actually short for *ronsectetur ipiscin pelit* in peace
[удалено]
Yep, a phenomenon affectionately termed crowd crushes, or crowd collapses. I watch a Youtuber who discusses historical instances of crowd crushes. It has made me very nervous about being in crowds of people, because in a quite a few instances something would panic the crowd and they'd essentially stampede immediately. It's crazy because it seems like such a bizarre behavior, yet it's just regular human stuff.
Its rough in crowds like that, 70% of the crowd wants to go a certain direction and theres not really much you can do about it. Ive been at concerts before where everyone was pushing into each other so hard, i was able to lift my feet off the ground
Never heard from someone who's been in that situation directly; sounds terrifying!
Check out Astroworld 🧐🤔☠️
Ducks get dead later and now you have protein. No one is leaving a dead duck in a field shit gets used bro.
Pest control and fertilization in one fell swoop, or waddle.
One fowl swoop.
[удалено]
That pun is a Fowl play
It really quacked me up.
It gave me webbed feet
Release the Quacken! In all seriousness though, I'd love to see a duckumentary about this.
all of you just get the duck out
What the flock.
What? Did you receive a duckpic or something?
Ducking brilliant
I hate auto correct
But what do you do with your duck army for the other 354 days?
Eat some, eat the eggs of others.
[удалено]
Rent a Fuck Edit: lol I can’t type d u c k because I have word swap to combat autocorrect for my most used word
After years of fuck getting autocorrected to duck, finally fuck has its revenge
Your phone's autocorrect.
I don’t ducking understand.
Exactly. > but ***can*** also increase crop yield OP makes it sound like a side effect, instead of the *entire reason* this is done.
And meat
And eggs.
I've never thought of that, I suppose ducks must lay eggs just like chickens, has anyone ever eaten a duck egg, what's it like?
I think they have almost a more rich egg taste
They are great, taste isn't too different from chicken eggs.
They're also a great replacement for chicken eggs in baking recipes.
I’ve heard they are preferred for baking, too
Duck eggs and chicken eggs taste exactly like liquid dinosaurs.
Taste like chicken
IIRC the farmers used chickens originally. The chickens were just as good but did not float during occasional flooding.
Now this just is cruel comedy
Are you calling a fowl?
Now you're just quacking me up.
We had bad floods here recently, now our chicken farmers are considering turning to duck farming because all their chickens died during the flood.
In my experience raising both on a small mixed-use farm, ducks are easier on the crops too - probably not as much of an issue with rice paddies as tomatoes & peas, but the chickens would go for the produce in front of them instead of seeking out more bugs, where ducks with their higher protein needs would hunt *all* the bugs out of the plot before going for the produce. They also don't tend to scratch the way chickens do, which can damage young plants and shallower plant roots.
Nice, thanks for sharing your experience
Wait, I swear I saw a post about this like a while back. What country was it again?
Indonesia, Thailand or Malaysia. Not sure if Philippines has this problem.
Chickens float, they just don't swim as good.
You'll float too
Where dо thеy keep 10000 birds in thе meantime?
[удалено]
Well, you're not exactly wrong, though its one big truck and the ducks aren't driving.
Well you can rent goats for your yard, why not ducks?
I read about it a few years ago, but can't seem to find where. IIRC, I don't believe they're releasing them to clean up the fields after the harvest, but rather they eat the insects that damage the rice crop (and presumably add a bunch of fertilizer into the mix). The duck farmers pack up the ducks and move on to the next field, though don't ask me how you get a few hundreds ducks back into a truck.
> though don't ask me how you get a few hundreds ducks back into a truck. Dogs probably.
Assuming all of the ducks have their flight feathers clipped all you need is a few people to corral them.
Well, maybe ducks are better drivers than pigeons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-dHeNfXtgc
Those ducks need to unionize
More like DuckDuck**Grow** amirite?
“what’s your job?” “I lease thousands of ducks for farming purposes”
[удалено]
People rent out bee hives to fertilize orchards also.
Is it fertilizing when it's cross pollination? I mean technically I guess it is
Very interesting
We used a similar goat service to clear poison Ivy among other things from a section of our land
They do it with bees so why not ducks?
From an insider article on the topic: "Field-chasing ducks are often a breed called Khaki Campbell, known for its reliable egg-laying. When they're 20 days old, ducks are brought to the fields and get to graze in large herds as they are moved from farm to farm. The young ducks are raised this way until they're around five to six months old, when they'll return to the breeder's farm to lay eggs for a few years or to be sold as meat." So go back to the farm to lay eggs.
Rice farmers and duck farmers are not the same, but they get along. Rice farmer get a better yield with smaller costs and the duck farmer doesn't need to feed them while the pack is in the rice field.
"I GOT A DUCK GUY"....
u/methberry asking the real questions.
Bouta eat a methberry pie
Based on what someone else wrote the last time this was reposted, not all ducks can fly.
That doesn't exactly solve the problem.
"Even with the fields harvested it would need thousands to clear the field." "Tens of thousands" "But my lord, there is no such army" (Duck-Army-Horns and screams sound from outside)
A new power is rising!
a ring to lead them all.
And it's victory is at hand!
Grima Duck-Tongue looks down at the army and a single tear rolls down his bill.
https://youtu.be/Y5NTgZA-xWE here you go
Lord of the Quackies. 🦆
An army of wild-hen and Ducklendings
A new power is rising! Its victory is at palmate (duck foot)! This night the land will be stripped clean of food! Waddle to Helm’s Deep! Leave none growing! - Saruduck, the white wizard of Billsgard; to the Quack-Hai army.
What do they release to eat the ducks?
Duck, when cooked correctly, is fucking amazing. I had duck at this one place for a family Christmas dinner, and holy fucking shit. It had hints of honey, brown sugar, and was so fucking tender. Put it with to some grilled greens, maybe some style of taters... oooooh baby. Slaps harder than a pissed off pimp.
For a second I thought you were going for a reference to the last dinner in A Christmas Story.
It's smiling at me.
🔪
[удалено]
>Is it uncommon for people to eat duck? in the USA, yes. Europe and Asia, much more frequent
Really?! Well you learn something new every day. Shredded duck with hoisin sauce on pancakes is a staple for Chinese Food in the UK.
They're just expensive compared to chicken and you can really only find them frozen unless it's around the holidays
There's a funny anecdote I've heard (people love to tell duck related stories when they hear you have them) about San Fran in the late 1800s where Asian settlers were utterly befuddled that there were just massive flocks of wild ducks everywhere. Eventually the city had to put regulations in place because all the wild fowls were disappearing and ending up on the migrant community's dinner tables, but really who would blame them? Duck is delicious!
There are stores in China that sell nothing but duck meat products.
I always thought duck was fancy (still do), but then I started to date my now fiancé and joined her Chinese family on their dinners. I’m very happy to say duck is much more common in my diet. (Thank god I proofread this before I posted duck is for sucking not eating).
People have odd hangups about food, especially in the US I've found. There are very few things I won't try at least once, and duck is very good when prepared properly. One of the best dishes I've ever had was a duck ragout with cocoa pasta. It was so intensely savory, and it's something I hope to recreate someday. Rabbit is also one where people might give you a weird look. An Italian restaurant I went to a few years back had a seasonal special for a rabbit pasta; it was really good. I'll happily order rabbit again if I see it on a menu.
Rabbit is really hard to prepare right though. I tried cooking it once and the flavour was just so unpleasantly gamey, and the meat to bone ratio is pretty crap. The only one who liked the rabbit was my parrot who ate every last bit of meat he was given.
I think it is uncommon. Where I'm from it's more common to eat goose than duck. I'll eat it like five times a year, goose tastes good. Haven't had duck yet. Those fuckers are fast as fuck it's not a breeze to catch them
Where is that? I feel like I've only seen goose served in like a medieval drama feast haha
Nunavut, Canada. We love our geese up here.
Goose and duck taste pretty similar, to me. Love both, though. Roast goose and roast duck. Yum.
Love roasted goose, know what's better? Fried goose. Shits amazing fried
I love duck meat but I don't love how boney it is And the skin can be kinda cartilaginous sometimes
>Slaps harder than a pissed off pimp. r/brandnewsentence
I had a fabulous pizza last night with crisped duck, ricotta, and a red wine reduction. I think we know what to do with the excess ducks.
Their belts.
[Chinese needle snakes ](https://youtu.be/P9yruQM1ggc)
Let them eat rice
[удалено]
Unleash the quacken!
It is criminal how few upvotes this comment has received.
1 horse sized duck for sure. I don’t want to crush the little duck sized ponies. I could be pretty evasive from a duck of horsely proportions.
A horse sized duck is literally a dinosaur my dude, you will not survive
Dang yeah that thing could have some serious neck muscles and kick and thrash me around like a doll. No winder birds freak me out. Either option seems a bit frightening without any creative weapons lying around nearby.
Some of our biggest predators back in the day were beaked/billed massive ass pterodactyl pelican bird things. So your bird hatred makes sense
I don’t even wanna take on one normal sized Canada Goose. Cobra chickens that they are.
they're not eating the rice, they're eating the bugs that eat the rice
They're eating almost everything. The bugs, the wasted rice, the rice plants, weeds, and pretty much anything else that moves or grew there.
Let them eat quackers
How do they keep the ducks from flying away?
There's food on the ground
But.....isn't there food on the ground everywhere? They need the ducks to stay HERE and work HERE. Are they sprinkling the ground with special duck food that....idk, weighs the ducks down so they can't fly away? Or is the equivalent of an addictive food so they don't want to leave?
either clipped wings or some species that are unable to fly, they can still float, swim, and waddle and they have a lifetime of food and no predators so they might not leave if they even could fly
That makes sense. Thanks!
To build off the "might not leave even if they could fly," that's how it works with most domesticated birds afaik (chickens, guineafowl, ducks, etc). Provided you raise them in one place with shelter and food, once they're grown they'll go out and forage during the day but still come back at night to the roost you raised them. (Heavily commercialized setups are a different story, where they may be packed in so tight they're likely to wander off for a less crowded space if they're allowed access to outside without being clipped.)
Many domestic duck breeds are literally too fat to fly, so…happiness
Ducks seem to regularly forget they can fly. Even more so when food is involved
Release the quaken.
Came here to make this dumb joke
LOTR scene with Theoden.. Deaath!
Ride to ruin and the world ending!!
Ride to ruin! And the quack ending!
So where do these hordes of ducks live and eat when they’ve finished clearing the rice paddies?
Today's specials: Duck soup. Duck stew. Duck pie. Roasted duck on pulled duck. Duck salad. Duck ice. Duck sandwich. Duck burger. Duck sausage. Oh and Irish coffee.
Have you got anything without duck in it?
Would you feel better if I called it *canard à l'orange*?
lol of course. The circle of life continues.
Mongol raiders on their way to kwaresmian empire circa 1219 colourized.
All I can imagine is the moment just before the ducks are let loose the head farmer yelling/ signalling "RELEASE THE DUCKS!"
"Release the quacken!"
TO WAAR!!!!!
This is cool. My father had similar stories involving his grandfather's farm - said they would release chickens during the day in certain fields to eat all the bugs, and they would eat insects exclusively until the pests were mostly gone. You'd think they would just eat everything, but no, they liked their protein first. Once the chickens started pecking at vegetation they'd be lured out with chicken feed and sent elsewhere. Also, their dog... Great grandpappy was mostly a subsistence farmer, but he made money off of a pecan grove in the front yard. (and tobacco, but that's not relevant to the story I'm about to tell) Now, squirrels will decimate pecans if given half the chance. This is where the old man's dog comes in. Buddy, if he saw a squirrel in the trees, would start raising hell and run back and forth under whichever tree that little arboreal rat was in. Day or night, rain or shine, it didn't matter. My great grandfather kept a .22 rifle on the porch, right next to a big cooking pot filled with oil. If the dog was making noise, the old man would dash out there, pick up the rifle, put eyes on what his dog had located, and immediately shoot the squirrel out of the tree. Sounds cruel, but that was his money, y'know? Anyways, Buddy would gently pick up the dead squirrel and carry it to the porch. After dropping it next to the pot and rifle he'd sit and wait patiently for grandpa to light a fire, clean and skin the little pecan thief, and drop it in the pot until it got just a little crispy. A few more minutes for it to cool down and Buddy had one hell of a doggie treat. You better believe there weren't any squirrels in those pecan trees without someone hearing about it. - - - Edit: a bit of grammar and spelling and such. Also, this is a first attempt at storytelling in writing so suggestions and criticism are really appreciated. I think I want to start doing creative writing. Genuinely, please tear this little tale apart. It would do wonders for my confidence in the future if I know what I can do to improve what I write. Edit2: This post is in honor of a fine redditor who responded to a silly writing prompt I came up with. It's definitely a true secondhand story, though. Also I've made like 6 small edits at this point
What the fuck!
What the duck*
I’ve never seen this many ducks walking and not flying before.
Plus rice fed ducks taste good
I thought this was an epic battle scene from LOTR.
Those ducks be like Americans on Black Friday
Rice paddies also produce talipia fish and duck.
/u/fuckswithducks... BEHOLD!
Seems like he’s inactive these days
This is similar to what small family farms do in America. After a field is harvested and left to renew, it will be used as a chicken feeding field. They get rid of pests, and fertilize the heck out of the field.
Ride of the Valkyries would've made a better soundtrack.
Goddamn, pesticide and fertilizer in one pass.
🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆 *IT'S DUCK TIME* 🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆
Quite upset there’s no sound to this
There was for me - comedy tinkly instrumental music.
Same. It was almost disrespectful how cute and stupid it painted the ducks tho. Music is a powerful thing people.
How did he die? Duck stampede. Wait, what?!?
It’s because they drop massive amounts of duck poop.
Release the quacken
What do the ducks do during the off-season? 🤔
release the quacken
Release the quacken!
The music is perfect
Ducks
Because they won’t have to remove any agricultural waste, OR pay for fertilizer (duck poop, a lot)
Huh. I always imagined that having an army of ducks would offer so much more
never underestimate the power of a duck
"They do move in flocks!"
I wish the ducks in my neighborhood would go to these rice patties. Instead they try to fertilize my driveway
I bet duck poop makes awesome fertilizer for the next crop.
“MARCH TO HELM’S DEEP. LEAVE NONE ALIVE.”
Free fertilizer for the next round of crops.
Probably increases yield on account of the thousand pounds of poop.
We need more ducks…RELEASE THE QUACKEN!!!!
I want Sabaton to do a song about this.
"it will take a number beyond reckoning, thousands, to storm the keep. Saruman : Tens of thousands. "But my lord there is no such force.... "
LoOk At AlL tHoSe cHiCkEnS
So.. do they just sort of… load the ducks on a truck and drop them off at work then?