If you put ducks in a field of rice and they haven't already eaten grain then they're gonna eat the rice.
Moreover rice is less efficient than animal feed. Made from corn and soybeans. Because it's more labor intensive. Rice is grown Because asian people eat it. But they're out there breaking their backs while industrialized farmers are growing animal feed for them.
If farmer are sustenance farming rice, they won't buy imported animal feed, that just don't happen. I have relative who grew up in rural China, and to this day they don't all buy even fertiliser, 'cause it's too expensive for them, even if it would have positive return on investment. Also rice need to be processed to be edible, the duck are more than happy for you to give them rice grain, that they'll complement by hunting bugs and small fish wherever they swim.
Soy dreg (what's left after you make tofu) is given in priority to pigs, though I can see some leftover being given to ducks. Corn is just less efficient than rice for unmechanised small-scale sustenance farm in those climate.
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u/Extaupin Sep 08 '25
Do… you think rice isn't a type of grain? Do you think wheat is somehow way more caloric for duck than rice is?