The laws of physics do not prohibit this, and ducks themselves do not mind eating a bun of white bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. However, poultry farmers do not advise feeding the inhabitants of city ponds with bread, and there is a reason for that.
The thing is that bread is a solid four out of ten food. It tastes good with borscht, with mashed potatoes, but not as an independent dish. White wheat bread consists of carbohydrates by almost 50%. For birds, whose bodies have other metabolic needs, this is an excessive load that is not compensated by other nutrients. But with vitamins in it, it is difficult, bread is a very poor source of microelements necessary for health.
Unfortunately, ducks don't know such clever words as “vitamins,” “nutrients,” and “daily allowance.” It's simple for them: the duck tastes the bread, and it tastes good. And delicious is good. The little bird doesn't realize that such an amount of sugar puts an excessive load on the pancreas. The organ begins to produce insulin at a frantic pace and save the animal from an overdose of carbohydrates. And, usually, it copes. But if the duck switches to a diet exclusively of bakery products, the pancreas rapidly depletes. The result is obesity and an increased risk of metabolic disorders, such as diabetes.
And that's half the trouble. Due to a lack of vitamins, birds develop rickets, a disease that destroys the bone structure. The lack of necessary substances is especially tragic for ducklings. Young birds develop “angel wings” instead of normal wings.
It sounds quite poetic, but the trouble is that it is impossible to fly on them. These are underdeveloped forelimbs, spread out in different directions. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to cure this disease. What conclusion can be drawn from this? You can feed birds bread, but you don't need to. For them, it is sweets, a cake on Fridays. But now every passerby throws bread to the duck.
Stop the vicious circle, bring sprouted grains, compound feed, or low-fat cheese to your birds. Then the birds will stay healthy and you will be satisfied.
