Saxony Duck Road Test, Burke's Backyard

Tonight we're going to road test an obscure breed of duck, the Saxony duck. That's them in the foreground. You can see the males are rather darker and patterned, the girls are a much softer sort of a colour. These are a good duck that can't fly and they're pretty good ducks for the backyard. And in fact, they're quite good with kids because they're not aggressive, basically just mooch around the place and enjoy themselves. They can even use the kiddies waiting pool when the kids are too big to use it anymore. Amy, what do you think of the Saxony ducks? Good. There you are. Good. In a garden they're good because they forage. Particularly if you have spiders or anything like that, they'll soon clean those up for you. And snails. So good snails, good killers of spiders. Yes. But they don't rake around like chooks do. No, they can't because of their webbed feet. They can't scratch. Obviously you wouldn't let them near the veggie garden. Oh, definitely not. Definitely not. If you have a prized vegetable garden, they must be fenced as they just absolutely adore lettuce, cabbages, cauliflowers, particularly tomatoes. Leaves and all. They'll hatch their own babies. They're fairly good sitters, but I don't. So you incubate them? I incubate them. Which means you could be getting 50 babies from a hen in a year if you were really going? If you're really going for it. It doesn't matter how big your backyard is. I'm sure you can always have a duck around the place. And if you choose one, make sure you do have dry bedding for them. I know ducks and water go hand in hand, but they need a dry area so they don't get infections in the feet. A thing called bumblefoot. You'll be visiting the vet if they get that. The other thing you've got to watch is their droppings. If they get diarrhea, you'll also be visiting the vet to make sure they don't have worms or another parasite called coccidiosis. It can be treated, but the infection can kill them if you don't get on top of it quickly. The happiness for you is sitting here watching them? All day. All day? All day.