Muscovies

[Ravnis]

1223111128.jpgI finished moving and the rain was kind enough to turn my dry pit into a small pond for the ducks. The pond is ~1/2 acre that went dry in last years drought.

There are now 15 muscovies and 23 Buff orphington ducks, Other than feeding them, the biggest problem is finding and gathering eggs. They stopped laying after the move and have not started yet. I figure they will start again in 2-3 more weeks, I was getting up to a dozen a day off of them.

[GaryD]

Hi Ravnis,

Do you incubate your duck eggs......or leave the ducks to hatch them out? Do you eat duck eggs?

Gary

[Ravnis]

I incubated the first two sets. According to the books, the buff's supposedly are great layers, but not good setters, but I guess mine did not read those books, because if I did not gather them constantly, I would be overrun with ducklings. The scovies I just let them do their thing and just leave them alone and I got 20 offspring from 1 female last year. Ducks are great at camouflaging there nests too and will not go to the nesting boxes I put out for them, but hide and sometimes even bury the eggs to keep me from them..

Yes, we eat duck eggs, I can't tell the difference between chicken eggs myself , but others describe it as richer and stronger flavor. We generally were having omelets for a meal a week, plus giving a dozen or so away a week. The meat is very tasty, but I have found that I'm not really keen on killing them myself. Processing is not a problem, but killing them takes me a while to psych up to. I would probably have become a vegetarian If I had to do this before developing a taste for meat. Duck is a very uncommon food around here, and hardly anyone knows what it tastes like. They typically respond '"you can eat duck ?!?"

[velacreations]

muscovies are a great animal to integrate with rabbits. Here's a paper on them being fed rabbit butcher waste (offal):
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...xSpbBQ&cad=rja

[GaryD]

Hi VC,

Another interesting link......and one that connects nicely to the third link.....in this post.

For backyarders.....and increasingly for small commercial farmers.....integrations like these are the way to go.

Gary

[GaryD]

Hi,

Nine of our ten muscovy ducklings met their maker this morning. The tenth one had been named (Oigle) so I wasn't allowed to process him/her.

The dressed weights ranged from 1.5kg (5 females) to 2.6kg (4 males) for a total of 16.6kg.

Gary

[GaryD]

Hi,

More Muscovy ducklings appeared yesterday. The hatch is still happening but mother and babies appear to be doing well.

We have two other ducks sitting at the moment......and, if we let them, the remaining five ducks would be doing the same thing. I wish breeding everything was as easy.

The ongoing wet weather, and the movement of chickens and duck around their housing, has turned the area in to a bog.......so we're restricting the number of ducklings that we produce.

Next year, with a larger duck shed (further from the house), we'll probably let them all get into the act.

BBQ duck and duck curry are good food.

Gary

[velacreations]

wow, those are nice. I'm gonna have to get some muscovies.

I wonder what smoked duck is like. Supposedly, when cured, muscovy meat is similar to pork.

[GaryD]

Hi Abe,

Muscovies are a perfect duck for small-holders. They are quiet, hardy and can obtain much of what they need to eat by grazing.

Japanese (Coturnix) Quail would be another good thing to integrate into your operation. There's plenty of good information about quail on this forum, too.

Pigeons (squabs) are also good.....particularly if you have grain growers nearby.......which means that you get to feed them for next to nothing.

Gary

[GaryD]

Hi,

Our latest Muscovy hatch commenced last Tuesday. Two ducks have, between them, produced 14 ducklings. One of them still has several eggs and we have a further duck still setting.

One interesting thing about this hatch is that the ducklings from one duck all walked through the dividing mesh in the pens and joined the other ducklings. One duck is looking after all of the ducklings and the other duck is just looking through the mesh.....not at all happy.

We were tempted to give her some ducklings but it's better to leave things as they are. If we startle the ducks too much, they will trample on the babies.

Gary