Six Figs Farm LLC

Saturday, we moved our ducks into our elderberries and muscadines. The ducks were thrilled for new grass, bugs, and places to play. Our kids herded the ducks and geese while Mikkel and I moved the tractors (moveable shelters) and fencing. Most people try to keep their animals away from their crops. Why do we bring them in and fence them in with our crops?

Ducks have natural behaviors that lend to building healthy soil, but can overwhelm an area if left in one place for too long. They’re the messiest birds I’ve ever seen, pooping in their water and everywhere else with abandon, digging beak sized holes in the ground. Their poop is excellent as a fertilizer, but too much of anything in any one place is too much. So, we move them about, using their behaviors to our advantage. Their habit of pooping in their pools gives us diluted fertilizer- but even diluted, we don’t want it all in one place.

For the next several months, we’ll move our animals through our orchards and fields. We move the duck tractors- the shelters the ducks and geese stay in at night- every morning in between the rows. The duck pools, full of nutrient rich water, will be moved behind, emptied daily onto the field. The ducks will eat up crickets, dig up the larvae of pest bugs, eat slugs and snails, and eat weeds. While they’re doing that, they’ll fertilize everything the most natural way. Also, they’ll have a great time doing it.

Doing things this way lowers our pest population. Since we don’t spray pesticides, this is huge. Each winter, we take soil samples for testing to the UGA extension. Our soil test results show consistent rejuvenation of the nutrient content of our orchards. This means we can use much smaller amounts of organic fertilizers. Mulching heavily after we move the ducks out means that we can minimize our water use, especially on crops like elderberries that are heavy water users. We use irrigation drip lines under the mulch, as well, so we can use as little water as possible. We move the ducks, geese, and chickens out of our orchards and fields at least 4 months before harvesting anything.

It’s always an exciting time of year for us, when we first move the birds into the orchards. We want our ducks to have happy, duck appropriate lives. Fresh water, clean grass, bugs to chase. We want our fruits and vegetables to be delicious, healthy, unsprayed, and filled with all the nutrients possible. We want our duck and chicken eggs to be delicious and the healthiest possible. You can read more about how we are practicing regenerative agriculture here.

Have you tasted our duck eggs? They’re delicious with large deep yellow-orange yolks. They taste quite similar to our chicken eggs, a little richer, more egg-y. Some folks love them for eating scrambled, fried, etc, and others swear by them for baking. To read more about baking with duck eggs, you can go here.