Baby Ducks love Watermelon

These baby ducks at the Punahou schools Earth Day 2008 celebration were a big hit, and those ducks sure do love watermelon!


"How do ducks fit into being sustainable?" This was a question asked to us by all the Punahou students and teachers as well.

The answer is not something that everyone understood right away, but it's

The ducks are used to weed the Taro patch at Olomana Gardens, and they also fertilize the water for us, and provide fresh eggs and meat for the farmers and people of Oahu.


We brought the ducks to demonstrate the power of duck!

That's an expression that comes from Japan, where they integrate raising ducks in rice patties, and where they are able to get 3-400% more production of rice. When they start off, they drain the field and the adult ducks are left there for a week, where they plow the grass and dirt into the drained field.

The adult ducks are taken out, and the pond is flooded again while rice seeds have been planted. When the young rice is over 4 inches out of the water, the baby ducks are let back into the pond. Not the adult ducks, but just the baby ducks! At 4 inches tall, the baby ducks cannot eat the rice. However, the baby ducks little webbed feet act like little motors, that churn the muddy bottom. The rice slowly grows, but the weeds below do not germinate because the muddy water stops the weeds from growing.

The rice grows tall and well, while the weeds have been stopped from growing by the baby ducks churning feet, or by being eaten by the baby ducks who patrolled the water.

So, the ducks take out almost all of the hard work of tending the rice field, and make things grow better for the farmer!