How much slug control can I expect from ducks?

In short: lots!

So the ducks will eliminate every single slug?

Not quite. You will never, ever get rid of every single slug, everywhere in your garden. There are a couple of reasons for this. The most obvious one is that slugs will always come in from outside your garden. The second is that ducks don’t eat the slug eggs. What ducks will do is bring the slug population down to a very low equilibrium. There is nothing else out there that can do that!

How long does it take for the ducks to be effective?

Well, we bought our ducks at 8 weeks old (old enough for the breeder to know for sure what sex they were). At this age, our ducks were close to adult size. Our 8 week old ducks started eating slugs from the very beginning. How many slugs they eat depends largely on whether they find the slugs or not, and what size of slugs we are talking about.

Our needy ducks shortly after we bought them

The time it takes for your ducks to make a noticeable difference in slug population will depend on how big your property is, how many ducks you have, and whether the slugs have anywhere to retreat to where the ducks can’t easily find them. More explanation to come in the next post!