Picture yourself walking around Furman’s iconic lake. Those that frequent the lake, will recognize many familiar sites. One of those being families and children clustered around the waters edge, throwing crumbling handfuls of bread to eager waiting waterfowl. Little do they know, they are harming these birds that they feed.
Just as children love sugar, ducks love bread. And why wouldn’t they? It’s an easy food source they don’t even have to work for. However, bread and other processed wheat products are lacking in essential nutrients ducks natural food source contain. Many ducks, like mallards, the most common on our lake, are divers that eat dark green plant material found on the lake floor. As a child, my mother drilled into my head that more colorful foods have higher nutrient counts. So, instead of ducks eating a diet of dark greens rich in vitamins, they’re eating overly processed white bread.
This leads to a condition known as angel wing, which can actually be seen in several ducks on the lake. As they are over consuming processed foods, ducks are not getting their key nutrients, and their bones actually start to warp. This leads to some funky looking wings, and the birds can be severely incapacitated and no longer able to fly.
An additional side effect of the ducks horrible bread diet is their gut bacteria is altered. They cannot properly digest it, and they over produce the bacteria ecology, which they then excrete into the water.
Instead of feeding birds bread or cereal, instead try something less processed. Easy switches can be to whole oats which have more nutrients, seeds (especially reduced sodium ones or preferable all natural mixes) or even split grapes. Some ducks, such as ruddy ducks, prefer a diet of fish. A really enthusiastic duck lover could try and feed these birds sardines, if they really wanted to. – Julia Clements