Can Ducks and Quail Eat Microgreens?

Probably, in small amounts, and nobody has established it. This page exists mostly to stop you borrowing the answer from a chicken.

Ducks and quail are fed on chicken advice constantly, by keepers and by the pages that serve them. For one thing that matters, that is measurably wrong.

The number this site publishes, which you must not transfer

This site's chickens page publishes Cornell's 10 percent ceiling for all scraps combined. It is a real figure with a real source.

It has no duck authority and no quail authority.

No veterinary or extension source opened for this page gives a share of daily intake that may be fresh greens or treats, for either bird. Cornell says foraging ducks can eat green plants but that output is low without supplemental feed, and sets no share. The bobwhite quail ration tables are for complete diets and give no treat allowance at all.

So the honest answer to "what percentage can they have" is NOT ESTABLISHED for both species, and the 10 percent figure two pages away on this site is exactly the number a reader would wrongly reach for.

Nor is there a portion. No source gives grams of fresh greens per bird or per kilogram of body weight for either species. A Washington State extension estimate that adult California quail eat half an ounce to an ounce of feed a day is about a wild species and a complete diet, not a microgreen dose.

Niacin: the one place the two birds genuinely split

This is the divergence that makes borrowing chicken advice risky, and it is documented.

A duckling needs close to twice what a chick does. A quail chick needs the same as a chick. So on this one point quail can follow poultry norms and ducks cannot, and a keeper running both on one bag of chick feed is underfeeding one of them.

Deficiency signs in ducks are appetite loss, slow growth, weakness, diarrhea, enlarged hock joints and bowed legs. Merck publishes a time-to-sign figure for deficient chicks at about two weeks and does not publish one for ducklings.

Greens are not the fix. Nothing establishes that any named microgreen prevents, treats or worsens duck niacin deficiency. Use a complete waterfowl ration and an avian vet. This page mentions niacin because it is the reason not to treat a duck as a chicken, not because a tray of greens is part of the answer.

The crop table, and why there is not one

On every other animal page here, this section is a per-crop verdict table. On this one it collapses to a single sentence.

Not one source located addresses any named crop in this directory as a cut microgreen fed to domestic ducks or to kept quail. That is all 60 crop lines and groups: every brassica, every legume, the grains, the herbs, the alliums and the other greens. Zero.

What exists instead is three things that are not that:

• Forage descriptions. Cornell names "green plants" for ducks without naming a species.
• Complete-feed research on a different material. The one relevant duck brassica trial fed Sansui ducklings 15 or 20 percent fermented rapeseed MEAL, carrying 3.25 or 4.34 micromoles of glucosinolates per gram of complete feed, from day 15 to 35. Feed efficiency was poorer at both, and 20 percent caused intestinal damage. That is a meal at a fifth of the total diet, not a garnish of cut greens, and it converts to nothing. Treat it as a lead: the publisher blocked the full text and only the abstract was readable.
• Plant chemistry. Glucosinolates have been measured in broccoli, kale, radish, cabbage and kohlrabi microgreens. Measuring a compound in a plant is not a feeding threshold for a bird.

So every crop on this site is NOT ESTABLISHED for both species, and that is a complete answer rather than a gap in the research. A keeper is entitled to know the difference between "tested and fine" and "nobody has looked", and here nobody has looked.

What that means in practice

It does not mean do not feed them. Ducks forage green plants and quail eat plant material; neither is being warned off greens by any source. It means nobody can tell you a quantity, a frequency or a crop, so the caution has to come from the general poultry rule that treats stay small and complete feed stays the diet.

The brassicas are the group to be most conservative with, on the strength of the rapeseed trial and the plant chemistry rather than on any duck or quail microgreen result. That is a reason for a small portion, not a reason to call any crop unsafe.

Where this leaves the field

One honest limitation of this page. A live capture of the pages currently ranking for these two questions was not obtained, so this page publishes no count of how many of them distinguish a duck from a chicken. Other pages here publish that count; this one cannot, and inventing it would be exactly the failure the page is about.

What can be said is that the authoritative sources DO make the distinction. Cornell says ducks need the same nutrients as chickens but in slightly different amounts, and extension material specifically identifies the higher duck niacin requirement. The distinction is available to anyone writing about this. It is simply not being made.

What to actually do

• Keep complete feed as the diet. Waterfowl ration for ducks, a species-appropriate game bird ration for quail.
• Treat microgreens as an occasional small treat, because no source supports any specific quantity for either bird.
• Do not apply the 10 percent chicken ceiling. It is on this site, it is correctly sourced for chickens, and it has no duck or quail authority.
• Do not run ducklings on chick feed. The niacin requirement is nearly double and it is the one documented divergence here.
• Go easiest on the brassicas, on the strength of a rapeseed meal trial rather than any microgreen evidence.
• Introduce anything new slowly and watch the bird, which is the general advice in the absence of specific advice.
• If you see appetite loss, weakness, bowed legs or swollen hocks in a duckling, that is a veterinary matter, and it is about the ration rather than the greens.

What nobody has measured

• Any named microgreen fed to a duck or a quail, for any outcome. Not one crop, not once.
• A safe share of daily intake as fresh greens, for either species.
• A portion in grams, per bird or per kilogram of body weight.
• Any glucosinolate threshold for either bird from cut brassica microgreens.
• A time to deficiency sign in ducklings, which Merck publishes for chicks and not for ducks.

Sources

Opened 2026-08-12.

• Merck Veterinary Manual, vitamin deficiencies in poultry - that 55 to 70 mg of niacin per kg of feed is satisfactory for ducks, geese and turkeys against at least 30 mg/kg for chickens, the duck deficiency signs including enlarged tibiotarsal joints and bowed legs, and the roughly two week time to the oral lesion in deficient chicks with no equivalent figure published for ducklings.
• Merck Veterinary Manual, nutrient requirements of Pekin ducks - the NRC table giving 22 percent protein and 55 mg niacin per kg for ducklings, 16 percent and 55 mg for growers, and 15 percent protein with 2.75 percent calcium and 55 mg for breeders.
• Cornell Duck Research Laboratory, duck nutrition - that foraging ducks can consume green plants while output is low without supplemental feed, that no share of intake is set, and that ducks need the same nutrients as chickens in slightly different amounts.
• NC State Extension, feeding ducks - the stage feeding sequence, including breeder layer feed beginning a month before the first egg.
• Poultry Extension, feeding ducks intended for consumption - the extension material identifying the higher duck niacin requirement, cited here as evidence that the distinction is available to anyone writing on this subject.
• Washington State University Extension, quail in the garden - the estimate that adult California quail eat half an ounce to an ounce of feed a day, reported here as a wild-species context and explicitly not as a domestic quail instruction or a microgreen dose.
• Duck fermented rapeseed meal trial, PubMed record - Sansui ducklings fed 15 or 20 percent fermented rapeseed meal at 3.25 or 4.34 micromoles of glucosinolates per gram of complete feed from day 15 to 35, with poorer feed efficiency at both levels and intestinal damage at 20 percent. The full text was blocked by an anti-bot page and only the abstract was readable, so it is reported here as a lead pending full-text review rather than as a settled figure.
• Brassica microgreen glucosinolate study, PubMed record - measurement of glucosinolates in brassica microgreens including broccoli, kale, radish, cabbage and kohlrabi. Also blocked by an anti-bot page, so no numerical result from it is used on this page.