Imagine, a pet you can let out in the day to roam around in your garden that will feed itself? If you’re growing the right things, anyway.

Ducks, in general, are surprisingly friendly for anyone who has not spent a lot of time around ducks. If a duck is comfortable enough with you, and has a duck companion, you might even be lucky enough to have your duck take a nap right on your lap. But be still though because ducks are even lighter sleepers than cats!

Do you quack like a duck? You might be a duck!

If ever you needed a reason to go outside and enjoy nature, collecting slugs, bugs, and worms for your ducks might just motivate you to get moving. Though, of course, ducks being natural foragers and Indian Runner Ducks being selectively bred for the express purpose of being useful as pest control on farms and in vineyards, your quack crew will not really need your assistance.

So why participate? Because it’s fun! You’ll learn so much about nature and the circle of life and things about ducks you may have never thought about before. You’ll also learn about what the ducks do and don’t like and how to adjust your garden or edible landscape to not only be a bountiful place for your own harvests, but to increase grubs and bugs for your ducks.

There will also be some places that your ducks may not be able to reach although Indian Runner Ducks can jump to reach things in far off places. Anyway, if there are slugs on the tops of your (fruit) trees, for whatever reason, you can participate in the hunt by picking them off, collecting them in a bowl, or directly hand-feeding them to your ducks.

I’ve found that after rainy days, you can go outside and walk the sidewalks to find worms that have crawled out onto the concrete to escape being drowned by the rain and…didn’t make it to a safe destination. Though that is unfortunate for them, that means you now have some more treats to bring to your pets. There is not much in the world that can make you feel such a simple delight like the the absolute greed displayed by your pet ducks when you offer them a bowl of dried worms.

Got gnats in your house? Indian Runner Ducks can jump…a little. Ants? Ducks love ants! Any creature outside that has the misfortune of catching the eye of an Indian Runner Duck that can get in its mouth, is sure to be a goner. And why not? Ducks have been used for centuries as pest control in wine vineyards, on farms, homesteads, and in gardens. You, too, can harness the power of the duck by adopting a couple as not only pets and garden companions, but as pest control.

Ducks are also known to eat mice and rats, snakes, lizards, and frogs, so by adopting a couple of Indian Runner Ducks, you’ll have feathered pest control that most pests cannot outrun, due to how fast Indian Runner Ducks can move.

You just need a couple of duck diapers, which you can prep for washing by soaking them in water, which removes the duck poop and then using that water to fertilize and water your house plants. Congratulations, you have created a system that allows for year round fertilization of your plants in a perfectly eco-friendly, zero-waste way.

You can even go ahead and wash your duck diapers by hand and then hang them up to dry in a place where you keep house plants as the additional humidity will be well-appreciated by the plants.

Indian Runner Ducks in the garden or edible landscape will run around pooping whenever the will hits them. Of course, without mulching your garden or landscape, things might get a little mucky. Collecting leaf bags in the fall or adding a thick layer of mulch can help keep things nice and dry, while also creating an environment that attracts worms and bugs that your ducks will be able to eat.

Ever seen a duck climb into a hammock? Well, despite the belief that ducks prefer to stay on the ground, they love hammocks! The funny part is watching them scramble onto one without the use of hands…which they don’t have. Indian Runner Ducks will sort of topple forward and try to wiggle/push themselves onto the hammock.

As with any pet, watching them interact with each other and get into mischief can be a real treat and a pick-me-up on any day.

Ducks are still birds. So, by watching what birds eat outdoors, you can gather more ideas for different plants to try and buy for your ducks, if you’re into gardening or want to pick up a new hobby. I’ve found this to be one of the most entertaining challenges about raising Indian Runner Ducks. You hangout outside in your edible landscape or garden and watch what the ducks do throughout the day, or watch them from a window inside your house on a rainy day, as those are the best days for the ducks to collect and eat worms (which have to come up for air so they don’t drown making them a wonderful delight for ducks on rain days).

Observing the ducks frequently gives you a better idea of what foods they like so you can find more of those plants to add to your edible landscape, which means you can spend less buying duck feed.

When adopting your ducks, just remember that it is recommended that you get at least two so that they can have a companion as ducks feel safer in a group and Indian Runner Ducks are no exception to this rule.

In fact, if an Indian Runner Duck gets separated from its group, it will call out repeatedly to that group so that they can find each other again.