What do the mallards eat in your part of the world?

Yukon Mike

Yukon Mike

Well-known member
It seems to me mallards are more open to trying new foods than other ducks, which might be why they are so successful. Up here I find a lot of the mallards' crops full of little snails, wild millet seeds, and some kind of underwater grass that the divers eat too. Guys on the coast say they'll eat mussels at low tide. I know in farm country barley is king, but I've also seen wheat and peas in their crops.

What about your area?

Mike
 
Around here (Rhode Island) in January, I've observed them eat salt water snails of some sort (maybe periwinkles)
 
they ADORE waste treatment plants where they eat human poop...

they flock to cow pastures by the thousands where they eat cow poop....

they won't pass up a chance to hit a flooded horse pasture where thehy eat horse poop....

and they feed heavily in the outfall of the slamon hatcheries picking the solids up as they flush out...which is mostly...ahhhheeeemmmmm....fish poop....

And these are widely proclaimed as "the GOLD STANDARD of eating ducks"......heck they sound more like Chessies to me...

Steve
 
Mike,

Here in Iowa they eat mostly from the huge corn plies we put out for them. Can't have them moving on to Missouri now can we. :>) :>)


Actually they do feed quite a bit in the harvested fields.
 
Most of the ones I see around Mobile Bay seem to be on the wonder bread diet, foraging around public parks, marinas & docks.

In 10 years of hunting here, I have killed 4 mallards, so a mallard hotspot we aint.
The wild ones that do show up in the flooded timber of the Mobile/Tensaw Delta are probably feeding on acorns but I really have no idea.
 
Actually I saw first hand what they eat in Washington - they curl up on a golf course and eat coffee dipped scones from the fat little pudgy fingers of the nearest bus crossing guard.
And then they lay down dead and pose on a piece of driftwood. I think that will pretty much wrap it up.
 
Yep mallards are as picky about what they eat as what they will mate with. Usually it's corn and sometimes beans here but you will almost always find a few wild seeds in them. I've seen enough bugs in them that if it is crunchy I rip the crop out without paying too much attention.

Tim
 
Mike,

Where Pete McMiller was hunting last week is mostly wild rice. In my area mostly bread. Day Old Wonder bread is best. They hate wheat bread but love white bread. Goes better with poop I suppose! Then when they get south of here there's actully food in the river again.

Ed L.
 

I once had a hen (wild) mallard that would hunt down, throttle and devour whole mice in the barn with relish. Her name was boomer and I raised her as a brooder buddy (used to calm down more high strung ducklings). She would follow me on my rounds (zoo keeping) and wait for me to flush mice from around the grain bins.

I've also watched mallards pick off smelt along the Grand Haven break wall along the Lake Michigan shore.

B
 
Well, according to a dozen Alaskan Duck Experts from the Palmer Hay Flats, the mallards around my section of marsh 5 miles up stream from them are all feeding off the spawed out salmon or the eggs from said salmon.

The few birds I have taken the time to perform a necropsy on all had mostly some water plant that looked like a milfoil. There were seeds as well, but I never tried to determine what they came from. Early September they are still going after insects.

I have yet to take a fish duck even though the said experts tell me my marsh us nothing but fish ducks. What is funny is that each morning I am out there I can watch flights of mallards way up high going out to the Hay Flats and bypassing the marsh I am in. They are coming from a remote marsh another 3 miles up the river and filled with more salmon. However, the Hay Flats experts tell me that my ducks don't come to their marsh since there is too much habitat between the two. They must think that ducks don't migrate or something.

Mike tell me about this "wild millet" you have over there. I have not been looking for moist soil plants over here, just water plants, but learning what is out there in the wild may help me find some better spots.
 
Salmon flesh and eggs...September on the Kenai....Silver fishing and shooting ducks....well shooting ducks on the first day anyway...Mallards and Wigeon and we were seeing them on the banks chowing down on rotted salmon carcasses, (interstingly we also saw two different Beavers doing the same thing--WHO KNEW?)...

They "reeked" when retrieved and we so packed with rotted flesh that if you held them by the legs the "slurry" slid out of their throats.....cleaning was even worse.....cooking worse still and even my favorite drink receipe, (here I'll give it to you....CUP of Jack...nothing else), could erase the taste.....

I've since seen them feeding on Salmon eggs and rotted flesh here in Washington, maggots, and "once" even saw them eating corn....

And they say Shovelors eat nasty things....

Steve
 
If a field is flooded at the right time, they'll fill themselves with earthworms. I've also found a few west side ducks eating seaweed and assorted attached creatures.
 
Over here it is corn, beans and then millfoil (or some other aquatic plant). I have found grass is a few as well.

Mark W
 
are "common" according to the guys down there that do cast and blast trips. I have seen the hen harlys up the Russian tearing into a carcasses, too. Most the time they are looking for insects, but just once they were on a left over fillet in slow water.

When the dead reds start flushing out of the upper river they are a primary source of food for everything in the Kenai. The buffet starts in June and lasts until late September so any duck down there will not be passing up the high quality protein source. Those ducks have more than likely been "on the feed" for months before the season opens. I wonder if the guys down along the Pacific Flyway ever get one of them in October and wonder what they have shot? Maybe it has given rise to some sewage lagoon park duck rumors over the years.

Where I am at there are a handfull of reds and then maybe a few thousand silvers in August and September. Some of the silvers are still moving around up to freeze up and make for some not so fun times with the dogs trying to bring them back, or rolling in them along the shore. At least it is not poop.

There are a lot of guys that have sworn that they have shot fish ducks everytime they have gone up the river from the Hay Flats. One guy even said eggs spilled out of a teal when he was cleaning it. Seven years so far and no fish ducks. Maybe if I shot more ducks my odds would improve, or rather get worse, or something.
 
Mike

I've told this before but it fits your topic. A few years back there was a huge shad die off on the lake near me. You wouldn't believe the mallards that swarmed this one side of the lake gorging themselves on the dead silver buffet. More mallrds in one area of the lake than I have ever seen in my life. Only a few miles away is a grain operation where they load and unload corn. The is a rather large bluebill population that thrives all winter by diving into the 30+ foot water to eat the spilled grain. I bet there were more than a few hunters who turned their noses at shooting the bluebill and were really proud for the mallards they smacked down and grilled.
 
speaking of salmon streams.... did you know that trees growing on the banks of salmon streams grow 18% faster and 12% stronger than other trees lacking annual nourishment?!
 
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