Duck Poo?

[kenour]

Hi Guys,

I've got 3 ducks in by backyard where I'm building my AP system, I was wondering if it's ok to let them in the pond? I've read about other people letting the ducks do their business in the water, after all, it just adds liquid fertilizer! As you could see they couldn't wait to get into the pond, ever before it was finished! I've whacked up a temp fence, was just wondering, is it worth putting something more permanent up, or let the little fellas go nuts!

So yeah, 3 ducks, 4000 litre, ok?

Cheers,

Kenny!

[Murray]

Looks great to me, I can't see any reason why it would be a problem. Very nice to see the ducks hanging around the pond anyway.

[GaryD]

Hi,

Ducks not only poop in it, but also use it to wash their beaks and eyes and, it their food is close enough, they'll use it wash their food down, too.

Unless your bio-filters are quite large, you'll find that your tank water will become filthy....quite quickly. If the organic loading become sufficient, the water will begin to stink.

Ducks look greating bobbing on the pond.....but it will need to be a fair bit bigger than 4000 litres.

Gary

[kenour]

Hi,

Ducks not only poop in it, but also use it to wash their beaks and eyes and, it their food is close enough, they'll use it wash their food down, too.

Unless your bio-filters are quite large, you'll find that your tank water will become filthy....quite quickly. If the organic loading become sufficient, the water will begin to stink.

Ducks look greating bobbing on the pond.....but it will need to be a fair bit bigger than 4000 litres.

Gary

Yeah that's what I thought! I've got an old high-school drink trough that I have out for them to drink and wash in, it does get pretty dirty, but that's only small!

I was hoping if I ran it through enough grow beds they would take care of the filtering, plants love poo! I might just grant them access for a week and see how it goes! I plan on doing a timed flood and drain (the old 15mins on, 45mins off timer setup), just gotta get the grow beds sorted!

Will keep ya posted!

Kenny

[Miki]

You have inspired me to start using my 'own' duck poo. My three white muscovy's are hanging to get into our pond but I think I'd better remove the fish before letting the ducks have a bit of a swim.... it beats washing out the water trough where the horses drink out of (unless its too dirty).

Thanks for the idea!

[GaryD]

Hi Kenny.

Limited access may be the way to go. Let them have a swim for a while every now and then.

If you find that the ducks are doing lots of diving, it may be that they've developed a taste for fingerlings.

Gary

[kenour]

You have inspired me to start using my 'own' duck poo. My three white muscovy's are hanging to get into our pond but I think I'd better remove the fish before letting the ducks have a bit of a swim.... it beats washing out the water trough where the horses drink out of (unless its too dirty).

Thanks for the idea!

Hi Miki,

Here's some more information I've found! So it wasn't such a silly idea!

Introduction

Duck-fish integration is very common in countries like China, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Russia and to some extent in India (Ayyappan et al 1998). The fish pond being a semi-closed biological system, with several aquatic animals and plants, provides an excellent disease-free environment for ducks. In turn, ducks consumes tadpoles, juvenile frogs, dragonflies and other insects, making a safer environment for fish. Duck excreta are used as fertilizer in a fishpond, which stimulates the growth of fish food organisms in the pond. Ducks feed on snails and gastropods available in the pond which otherwise serve as vectors for certain diseases and the ducks thus serve in reducing their incidence (Thakur and Thakur 1991). Ducks further help in aerating the pond water along with pond bottom raking effects, which is beneficial for fish. As small-scale farmers comprise the bulk of the population in India, their socio-economic conditions encourage them for duck-fish integration to raise farm productivity (Edwards et al 1988). In the present study three stocking density levels of ducks along with a control were used to evaluate the effects of different loading rates of duck manure on fish production.

Lifted from http://www.cipav.org.co/lrrd/lrrd18/1/chan18006.htm

[Martin A1]

Hi Guys,

There is a book published by Tagari Publications (A Bill Mollison Organisation - the guru of Permaculture in Australia) called The Power of Duck - Integrated Rice and Duck Farming. Google it...

I have the book but have not read it in any detail ('cause I don't have a rice field :rolleyes:)

I reckon that there would be plenty of good reasons to integrate the ducks into your system and am sure this book would explain why.

My only reservation would be that they would dirty up Kenny's lovely pond pretty quickly???

[Matt Trevatt]

Living in asia is always interesting. I know that when raising Tilapia ( yes the noxious pest) in stock ponds you can raise X amount of ducks with the the fish. Depends on pond size. The advantage is that you only feed the ducks a good quality feed. The fish eat the agly and the duck poo. You slaughter the ducks every 11 weeks. I am not sure of how ths might effect the growout bed area.

[Murray]

I would love to be able to grow out a fish species that will self breed. I think that Talapia would be great. When I was in PNG I was involved in a project funded by the British. The project built several very large dams that were stocked with Talapia and were fed on the pressings of the nearby oil palm mill. The fish grew like mad....did very well....the project ultimately failed however....after the project was handed over, nobody fed the fish.

[Matt Trevatt]

Tilapia are typically gender selected, in that the growout stock are hopefully 95% ++ percent male. If this is not the case the fish start to breed and brood and this effects the grow out size. Its advisable to have caged predatory fish that can eat the fry to keep the fish from brooding.
I was experimenting with manure teas at one point. I had a large plastic drum filled with water that had a plastic basket of composted manure set into the top. Water was circulated to keep it all aerobic and I added some palm sugar to encourage the correct plant life to grow. Well my son just happed to have caught a tiliapia from one of the local ponds and I plopped it into th drum. For about a month I feed it spasmodically. A little later a catfish was added, never to be seen again I might add. Months later experiment over I drained the drum to find the Tilapia alive and in very good condition, very plump considering that I had barely feed it think it must have died. It was feeding off the algy from the manure. On manure\composting teas I think they have great promise to replace deficiency's in aquaponic systems. Nettle tea has everything you could want pretty much, shame that its a pest as well.

[Jeremy Trevatt]

My interest in this topic came about essentially because I have a dam on my property that is spring as well as catchment fed. I am going to be expanding the dam and actually looking at creating a couple of other connected dams on the property in close vicinity. The dam has a fair amount of sediment in it and I want to clean it up through natural filtration. Hence I am looking at incorporating a number of reed beds into the entire system.

Coupled with this is of course aquaponics. When my brother (Matthew Trevatt who posted in this discussion last) was over visiting from Bali I took him out to my land and we talked about incorporating the natural filters and duck poo into the aquaponics system. I have subsequently bought a bunch more books from Amazon on both Duck keeping and building natural ponds.

We want to encourage other natural life around the ponds (such as frogs etc), so am thinking we may need to have a safe haven for those little critters from the ducks. And it also would seem from Gary's comments that we may need to control the level of access the ducks have to the pond itself due to all the muck they introduce. Obviously the bio-filter side of things needs some thought. I wonder what critters clean up after ducks? So keeping a hand on the muck-throttle seems to be the key. We want to be able to produce enough nutrient to be useful for injecting into the aquaponics system.

We will talking to the excavator guy shortly and plan to have the new pond designs done over the next few months (got to allow enough time to read those books from Amazon). I imagine we will be looking at a couple of hundred square meters of pond surface area. The depth in some places in the current dam goes to 18 feet apparently... so there should be a lot of volume to play with.

In order to move water back up to the starting position we need to get some pumps going. I am wondering whether I should seriously consider a number of solar driven pumps... but am somewhat concerned about their ability to pump enough volume. I don't know enough about pumps at this stage to make an informed judgement. I would appreciate anyone's comments about that.

As anyone has read my other thread on 'CSA Experience and Advice' they will know that I am planning on putting up some 'semi-commercial' greenhouse operations. I still plan to do so, but am wanting to be a bit more inventive on the nutrient side of things. It is also pretty clear that at least in the short-term, pure hydroponics is much more commercially proven (I resist saying 'viable'). It is difficult for aquaponics operations to compete on a large scale with hydroponics operations. However from a localisation and sustainability perspective, aquaponics and more generally IBFP may well prove to be a smarter solution. Hydroponic nutrient and fish feed continue to become more and more expensive, so sustainable solutions are imperative.

I am not convinced that fish is a great long term solution on its own (don't shoot me down with your passion) to providing nutrient, simply because of the input dependencies and costs relating to those. As a basic example, if you cant successfully breed your own fish and provide for all their food requirements then aquaponics wouldn't be 'sustainable'. Therefore introducing other complementary elements is vital. I know that complete sustainability in a system is probably idealistic, but it is also a goal most of us seek.

I want to diversify the nutrient source. Part of my desire to do this is to really design something that is as sustainable as possible. It is clear that sustainability is most convincingly achieved through cooperating with nature, and nature has given us the remarkable example of balance between diversification and integration. I know that Gary is the man of experience in this area.

Comments welcome!

Jeremy

[GaryD]

Hi Jeremy,

Good to have you 'round again......where've you been?

Some of my past comments were premised on the notion that the duck ponds were small. If you limit the number of ducks.....and your duck pond is larger (several hundred square metres) then you'll have less of a duck poop issue. In fact, a few ducks in a large body of water will contribute the nutrients that will encourage other organisms like algae, aquatic plants, insects, frogs, etc.....

Have you considered using a traditional windmill to move your water back up to the header dam? While they only move the water when the wind is blowing, they will pump up hill to great heights.



I am not convinced that fish is a great long term solution on its own (don't shoot me down with your passion) to providing nutrient, simply because of the input dependencies and costs relating to those. As a basic example, if you cant successfully breed your own fish and provide for all their food requirements then aquaponics wouldn't be 'sustainable'. Therefore introducing other complementary elements is vital. I know that complete sustainability in a system is probably idealistic, but it is also a goal most of us seek.


I agree entirely......and the need for the full range of nutrients in useful quantities will encourage a much broader approach to the whole question of integration. Integrated backyard food production is almost entirely about converting the (waste) by-products of one process into the feedstock for another.

At the moment, aquaponics is seen by many people as an end (rather than a means to an end)......and that's fine for those who just want an interesting and productive hobby......but it's a stretch to suggest that AP is (of and by itself) sustainable.

The interest in worms and vermicomposting.....and BSF....and aquatic plants like duckweed and azolla.....is encouraging. Of even greater interest to me (in an IBFP context) is that one of the most frequently viewed threads in this forum is about Japanese Quail......nothing at all to with aquaponics but everything to do with IBFP.

Gary

[Jeremy Trevatt]

Hi Gary,

I have been moving the whole family to the country.. getting them settled in, finding my feet and still trying to earn a quid!

Poop is a wonderful thing isn't it? I guess its all a question of balance.. according to an article I just read 30 ducks per 1000m was the recommendation, so I guess on that basis 6 or so might be the go for my little operation. Nevertheless I will wait for my new books on rearing ducks to arrive before I jump to any conclusions.

What a great idea about the windmill! When we don't get any wind I will just have to rig up the bike machine to it and spend a few hours losing weight - an all round win!

I have been keeping an eye on the conversation around worms, bsf, duckweed etc. it all sounds good. I was also a great enthusiast for the quails... my wife thinks I'm a meanie, so I will have to 'do the deed' well away from the accusing eyes.

I have taken the approach of earlier advice you gave me which is to go slow. I am getting power on the land first, reading some books, then getting the excavator out to build enlarge the main dam and build the other ones. Then I guess once the dam and surrounding flora/fauna is in place I can look at procuring some ducks... I am guessing I will have to have some aquaponic grow beds ready to roll to pump the nutrient through... so that's a question of timing again.

In the mean time I am also considering setting up a basic greenhouse (net) system (maybe 400sqm) that can be ready to grow a summer crop in. I am thinking Basil may be the way to go. I know this does well hydroponically so it might be a good approach to try something on a slightly larger scale without a lot of risk. If the integrated poop nutrient is all sorted out, all well and good, if not I can always use hydroponic nutrient.

Jeremy

[GaryD]

Poop is a wonderful thing isn't it?
Yep.....it helps to make the world go round.

[Jeremy Trevatt]

Actually just need to make a slight correction. I used Google Earth to measure the proposed new pond sites and it turns out the total surface area is around 2500sqm. Not sure what the volume would be, however its probably fair to say that the greater the area the finer tuned control you can have over nutrient output, however it would also be true that the total pumping and filtration requirements will go up as well. I just need to work out an appropriate algorithm which will calculate the different control requirements.
The factors are:
- total volume of water
- water replacement requirements
- poop production (ducks, fish, crayfish etc) volume
- feed requirements
- grow-bed volume (strictly speaking I probably wont use grow-beds, but a NFT variation.
- nutrient control measures (such as duckweed)
- pump requirements
- additional filter requirements (particulate filter, reed bed filter, sand trench filters)

Anyone got a magic formula? I don't think the basic grow-bed/water-volume ratio is quite refined enough considering...

I was thinking that having separate duck-weed ponds could serve as a control mechanism to help manage nutrient output... each one could be used inline or bypassed depending on nutrient output requirements.

Jeremy

[Matt Trevatt]

Link with some intereting stats on Duck Poo and fish raising.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/field/003/ac526e/AC526E04.htm

[Matt Trevatt]

Same site but this time info on chickens

Fowler and Lock (1974) described the possibility of inclusion of poultry waste as a feed ingredient in catfish ration. Some farmers in Asia build poultry cages on a wooden platform above a fish pond, poultry feed together with spilled feed fall directly into the pond where it is consumed by the fish. This system is very practical, no cleaning of poultry cages is necessary, and poultry situated above the fish pond enjoy an excellent air circulation which has a significant cooling effect for laying birds which are particularly sensitive to heat stress. This system in terms of livestock waste management increases the profit derived from fish and totally eliminates the pollution problem. It is estimated that one laying hen will produce enough manure to generate about 6–8 kg/year of fish biomass. Manure derived from individual confined livestock species (annually) can support the following annual production range of fish biomass (Muller, 1980).

Manure from Fish biomass production (kg/year)
One dairy cow 100 – 200
One beef cattle 90 – 160
One sheep 10 – 17
One laying hen 6 – 8
One replacement bird 4 – 5
One broiler 3 – 4
One turkey 7 – 8

[organicusrex]

Please forgive me since I can't recall the source on my next interjection. I recall reading about an extravagant display in a shopping mall using tropical birds and fishes. The cost of feeding the fishes was pointless since people couldn't see them very well and the fish were removed from the display save one lonely trout. The droppings from the birds in the aviary was the only source of nutrition this trout received and it grew to large and healthy size before it was noticed by the maintenance workers.

I spent one summer working in a county park and the fish population had dropped significantly in one lake in the park. Fishing by the public was curtailed. We added manure to it once a week for 3 months during that summer and the following year it was opened up again for fishing to the public. We didn't have to restock the lake with fish.

Poo makes the world go around alright. :D

I plan to do some more research regarding the info brought forth by Jeremy and Matt. A portion of my property has a gentle natural slope, and since we all know poo rolls downhill, my AP design may get amended to utilize this profound principal of physics.

Thanks for the enlightenment.
Dean

[Matt Trevatt]

These stats are interesting - lotsa stuff on this page... is there a Oz native that is an algae feeder like the tilapia?


http://www.engormix.com/integrated_aquaculture_by_bearing_e_articles_833_ACU.htm

Although there was no remarkable effect of the treatments on these water parameters; yet, it seams that fish ponds integrated with ducks (ponds No. 1 to 6) reflected warmer water with lower pH values and salinity levels but with higher DO contents comparable with ponds No. 7 and 8 (without ducks). Also, these changes were dependent on the ducks intensity, so were slightly stronger in ponds No. 1 and 2 (80 ducks / pond) than ponds No. 3 and 4 (40 ducks / pond), than ponds No. 5 and 6 (20 ducks/pond). These differences may be due to duck movements on the water surface, which help in enrichment of water with DO from the air. Moreover, the ducks excretion (with its uric acid) lowered the pH values. The movement of ducks on water surface improved the transfer of ambient temperature from and to water, so led to elevating the water temperature.

[anniefish]

Hi all,

I can see that having ducks on inground ponds can be beneficial, I would be extremely wary of putting poultry pens over and letting fish eat the droppings. The chance of passing on diseases and worms as well as any medications fed to the poultry would far out weigh any benefits I think.

I recall an incident where a huge feedlot fed poultry manure in their rations. One batch wasn't treated properly and killed most of the cattle.

Our ideas with AP are to have the healthiest fish we can, I can't see this would be a good way to go. I think when you make any system intensive, problems become more likely.

That's my bit,

Annie

[Matt Trevatt]

Actually thats a good point, re disease being transfered form one species to another. I am not sure tho why ducks would get the nod but chickens wouldn't. I would be surprised that chicken manure fed to fish would be a higher risk to humans than using composted manure directly on plants as is done in organic farming.
There have been studies done on the effects of feeding manure to fish and seeing how much bacteria is taken up by the fish and the results were really positive. IE the flesh that was sampled past lab test with no problems. They showed that manure feed fish were much more healthy than with manufactured food.
I think some of the sites I posted will take you to some of the studies at least.

The issue that come to mind for me is the delicate balance of nutrient load and DO. I think I posted a link to a site here a year ago on manure teas and how they were being used as not only a fertilizer but a pest and fungicide. The highly oxygenated manure tea mixed with certain sugars to encourage good bacteria and fungi growth. These aerobic bacteria rich teas can have a positive health advantage for fish and plants because they fill that niche preventing bad bacteria from dominating. IE U need to keep your O2 levels high.
The 2nd would be the need for good quality feed but that also applies to the fish also.
This has been done in aquaculture commercially for ages, the online material starts in the 70s but I have no idea if its ever been done with aquaponics. Since what is happening in most cases is that the nutrient from the manure is being used to produce algae, which the fish feed on, the balance of bird : fish: growout area has just got a little more complicated.

The reason why this is so intriguing for me is that with duck or chickens you can have a year round harvest of meat. Ducks for instance can be harvested every 11 weeks. Fish on the other hand typically take 9 months before harvesting. Also the food requirement for fish is greatly reduced sometimes to almost nothing.

[Murray]

When comparing composted manures used on gardens and manures used as fish food remember that the composted manure goes through two stages of conversion.
First the composting processes and converts the matter, then the plant takes up and processes the proceeds of the composting step before human consumption of the vegetable.

In the direct use of duck or chook poo for fish food, any baddies in the poo are directly placed into the fish, and from there directly placed into the human.

The use of BSF as fish food is a good way to place a processing barrier between the waste material and the fish, and deliver to the fish only the good from our waste products.

"Food safety and bacteriological considerations in using manure fed Hermetia prepupae are favorable. Hermetia larval activity significantly reduced E. coli 0157:H7 and Salmonella enterica in hen manure (Erickson et al. 2004)" See additional material. (http://www.extension.org/pages/Research_Summary:_Black_Soldier_Fly_Prepupae_-_A_Compelling_Alternative_to_Fish_Meal_and_Fish_Oil/print/) (BSF are Hermetia larvae)


From Anniefish ...I recall an incident where a huge feedlot fed poultry manure in their rations This is more common than most of us realise and is a disaster waiting to happen.

Not a good idea to directly feed something live that you intend to eat, animal poo, I feel. But to each his own.

[GaryD]

Hi,



I can see that having ducks on inground ponds can be beneficial, I would be extremely wary of putting poultry pens over and letting fish eat the droppings. The chance of passing on diseases and worms as well as any medications fed to the poultry would far out weigh any benefits I think.



There's two things I'd like to contribute to this discussion:

Rural Chinese (and various other Asian folks) have been doing exactly this for thousands of years.
Many large outbreaks of food-related diseases or poisoning...... Garibaldi smallgoods, Mad Cow, Melamine milk poisoning and now Swine Flu (?).....seem to emanate from large agribusiness operations.Gary

[Matt Trevatt]

Ya Asian farmers have been doing this forever. Since coming to Bali I have had the opportunity to work with local farmers and NGOs. Its made me realize that I came with a fair amount of western baggage. I was shown how to make green manure no dig gardens, helped service biogas units.
( Biogass would be a great intermediate step as heaps of the baddies get killed in the proccess and the slurry that exits can then be heavily airated to kill of the rest!)

Particularly when it came to things like manure and what animals are for eating and what animals we play fetch with. :-) I understand that U guys have valid points so I plan to do a little more digging around to see what sort of health risks there are. Ill let U know what I find out!
If anyone has knowledge or expeiences from both sides of the argument please let me know.
Love the soldier fly larvae, I agree that thats a great way to go. Coz U are converting **** to high quality protien.