Ducks do eat ants, though ants aren’t typically their favorite insect. Ducks are omnivores with broad appetites, and they’ll snack on ants they encounter while foraging, but they rarely seek them out the way they pursue slugs, beetles, or grubs. Whether you’re curious about wild ducks or thinking about using backyard ducks for pest control, the relationship between ducks and ants is more nuanced than a simple yes or no.
How Ants Fit Into a Duck’s Diet
Ducks eat a wide range of insects, worms, snails, slugs, and small aquatic creatures alongside grasses, seeds, and grains. Ants fall into the “they’ll eat them if they’re there” category rather than being a preferred food. One observation from duck keepers is that ducks tend to pass over ants in favor of larger, juicier prey. As one homesteader noted, ants are among the only common garden pests their ducks won’t reliably nibble on.
That said, wild ducks and free-ranging domestic ducks do consume ants opportunistically. A duck scratching through leaf litter or poking around a rotting log will swallow ants along with whatever else it finds. Dabbling ducks feeding along shorelines inevitably pick up ants that have fallen onto the water’s surface. It’s less targeted hunting and more incidental snacking.
Ducks and Fire Ants: A Real Risk
Not all ant encounters are harmless. Red imported fire ants pose a genuine danger to ducks, especially ducklings. Fire ants are attracted to moisture around newly hatching or very young birds and can sting them repeatedly. In severe cases, fire ant attacks can kill young poultry. Adult ducks are better equipped to move away from a fire ant mound, but ducklings housed in pens or brooders on the ground are vulnerable because they can’t escape.
If you keep ducks in areas where fire ants are common (most of the southern United States), keep brooding areas clear of mounds and monitor for ant activity regularly. Treating fire ant mounds near duck enclosures requires caution, because ducks will eat bait granules if they can reach them. Texas A&M’s entomology extension recommends confining birds to their coop before applying bait to the yard, or applying bait at night while birds are roosting. In warm weather, fire ants typically collect most bait particles by morning, before the ducks come back out.
Can Ducks Control an Ant Problem?
If you’re hoping ducks will eliminate an ant infestation in your yard or garden, you’ll likely be disappointed. Ducks are outstanding pest control for slugs, snails, and many soft-bodied insects, but ants reproduce in massive colonies underground where ducks can’t reach them. Even if a duck eats surface-foraging ants, it won’t make a meaningful dent in a colony that may contain hundreds of thousands of individuals.
Ducks also lack the physical tools to dig into ant mounds the way some other birds do. Woodpeckers and flickers have long, sticky tongues designed for extracting ants from tunnels. Ducks have flat, broad bills built for filtering water and scooping mud. They’re simply not built for ant hunting. For garden pest control, ducks excel at clearing slugs, earwigs, grasshoppers, and various larvae. Ants are better managed through other methods.
Wild Ducks and Ant Consumption
In the wild, ants make up a small fraction of a duck’s insect intake. Studies on the diets of dabbling ducks like mallards show that aquatic invertebrates, seeds, and plant matter dominate their food choices. Terrestrial insects including ants become more relevant during nesting season, when hens need extra protein, and during late summer when wetland food sources may shrink. Ducklings in particular eat a high proportion of insects in their first few weeks of life, as the protein supports rapid growth. Ants can be part of that mix, but they’re a minor component compared to midges, water beetles, and snails.
What Ducks Prefer Over Ants
If you’re feeding backyard ducks or wondering what insects they gravitate toward naturally, here’s what ranks higher than ants on a duck’s menu:
- Slugs and snails: A duck’s top-tier prey. They’ll clear a garden bed of slugs in minutes.
- Earthworms: Easy to grab and packed with protein.
- Grubs and larvae: Especially beetle larvae found in soil and under mulch.
- Crickets and grasshoppers: Ducks actively chase these when they spot them.
- Mosquito larvae: Ducks filter these from standing water efficiently.
Ants are small, fast, and often defended by biting or stinging. From a duck’s perspective, the effort-to-calorie ratio just isn’t great compared to a fat slug sitting on a lettuce leaf. Ducks are opportunistic but not foolish. They tend to focus on prey that offers the most food for the least work.