A warning from history

It might pay to feed Lucky Duck?

We had this very strange article sent to us recently. True or not, there’s no argument that healthy food for ducks is a ‘no-brainer’.

In 1910 one story caught the imagination of the United States – a tale of an Iowa man who lost sight in one eye after his prize-winning duck exploded. The duck, named Rhadamanthus (after the mythical king of Crete) had apparently eaten a pan of yeast on the man’s back porch. After an incredible build-up of gas the duck exploded. A ‘fragment of flying duck’ pierced the man’s eyeball.

As we enter a summer of duck feeding it serves as precautionary tale for New Zealand.

While not as bad as straight yeast, bread can be almost as damaging in the long run. When fed consistently to ducks bread actually causes malnourishment and incurable conditions related to vitamin deficiency. It’s also the cause of damaged duck habitats, the increase of organic matter in the water lowering oxygen concentrations and increasing the presence of harmful toxins like botulism.

Lucky Duck is locally grown and formulated to meet some of the key nutritional requirements a healthy duck needs. The blend has been carefully crafted to work as a maintenance diet for both wild ducks and backyard ducks. It contains nutritious oats and barley, kibbled maize and sorghum as well as vegetable additions for those essential vitamins.

It’s the first duck-specific feed formulation in New Zealand and the perfect answer for animal lovers who want to bin the bread.

As for the story? Renowned online fact-checking authority Snopes has labelled the article a ‘legend’. The website states that, while “this account did in fact run in dozens of newspapers across the U.S. in January 1910”, the legitimacy of the article was disputed.

“If Silas Perkins did lose a prize-winning duck and/or the sight in one of his eyes back in 1910, we suspect that neither event had anything to do with an explosion caused by a pan of yeast,” says Snopes.