Muddy garden!

[DrVix2021]

Hi there,

My beautiful clan, as I expected (!!)… have wrecked the garden. I live in England (wet winter!) and we have a garden that goes around the house. At the front there’s raised grass with two trees (that’s fine). Then on one side they have a pond and flat stones. We have a big driveway which is laid… fine there. But get to the back garden… we have a patio which is COVERED in muddy foot prints, paw prints and duck prints! Their coop is fine, that has sawdust and they aren’t in there that much. They have their (locked) house at night which is inside a locked waterproof coop. BUT THE BACK GARDEN. Oh my!! We had a lawn… which is now just pure mud. It’s wet a lot at the moment which obviously makes it worse. I’m just thinking what on earth am I going to go to get my lawn back in the summer?! Does anyone have any wise tips? I was thinking of a temporary fence from the coop to the side to seed grass from scratch - any brand recommendations?! This is our first year with ducks and also only our second year in our house and the lawn was never particularly well established. I love having the ducks free ranging!

 

[ruthhope]

Hi there,

My beautiful clan, as I expected (!!)… have wrecked the garden. I live in England (wet winter!) and we have a garden that goes around the house. At the front there’s raised grass with two trees (that’s fine). Then on one side they have a pond and flat stones. We have a big driveway which is laid… fine there. But get to the back garden… we have a patio which is COVERED in muddy foot prints, paw prints and duck prints! Their coop is fine, that has sawdust and they aren’t in there that much. They have their (locked) house at night which is inside a locked waterproof coop. BUT THE BACK GARDEN. Oh my!! We had a lawn… which is now just pure mud. It’s wet a lot at the moment which obviously makes it worse. I’m just thinking what on earth am I going to go to get my lawn back in the summer?! Does anyone have any wise tips? I was thinking of a temporary fence from the coop to the side to seed grass from scratch - any brand recommendations?! This is our first year with ducks and also only our second year in our house and the lawn was never particularly well established. I love having the ducks free ranging!

My son in sandy Florida has a similar problem although its a dustbowl not mud! His plan is to temporarily fence off half his back garden to give the grass time to recover. He started off thinking he would move the ducks tractor everyweek, but it is 8' x 4' and much heavier than he anticipated. So after struggling to move it a few time, he moved it to a probably permanent place. The grass under where the tractor last stood is a dustbowl and there is not much grass over most of the back garden.

He has pekins and they can be easily contained by a temporary fence. I have muscovies who would laugh at a fence and trample it down by jumping on it!!! My response to my dustbowl where the ducks have eaten everything to the soil level, is to put down a thick layer of mulch. I use oak leaves as they are readily available to me. At least the mulch looks good and the ducks love rooting through it looking for grubs

 

[cheezenkwackers]

You may have a different kind of grass than the mostly Bermuda grass we have in the Southern US. Our grass turns brown every winter. Where my ducks live turns to slimy duck mud by late winter. Then, come spring, the grass grows up through the yuck. The grass seems healthier for it. Maybe yours will too.

 

[raingarden]

What they said ^ The grass might grow back nicely if you can keep the ducks off of it. They don't eat the roots until the roots float up in the mud.

But, I don't understand why the ducks have not destroyed the pond and front yard yet?

 

[DucksOhio]

My ducks do that to my backyard every possible thaw they can get their beaks into mud. It does look like they are destroying the grass, but it always grows back.

 

[DrVix2021]

Thanks everyone. I think I’ve decided to just section it off early spring and put some heavy duty seed down and some of the black weave things over the heavy traffic bit… might be a case of doing this every summer!! It’s literally mud now! Good job they’re cute!!