Moscovies. Just brought home

[jake and pippa]

I have two hens nesting in dog crates. One of them is on a huge cluster but I'm going to just let her stay there and see how many hatch out. The other is in a smaller dog house and she pushes some of the eggs out out from under her and some are spilling from that doghouse. I could take them and try and hatch them indoors but I understand it's very hard to incubate muscovy eggs successfully. Right now I can see basically a whole clutch worth for the taking. I can candle them. I could give them to my girl who has just hatched out two babies and as I say is still sitting on the nest but I don't know if she should be free to take care of her ducklings who seem to be totally independent even though they're only a few days old.

 

[jake and pippa]

I took the Muscovy eggs and gave them to a broody hen. She was annoyed with me because I keep on taking her eggs but I know that they're not fertile because none hatch, either with her or in my incubator. None candle. I have had success Incubating eggs from other farms and my own goose eggs. I suspect my #1 rooster is shooting blanks and he is going to the soup pot in the next few days. I have another adult Roo and lots of youngsters that I purchased as chicks this year.

I am very pleased, I just looked and five minutes later that hen has gathered all of the Muscovy eggs underneath her, so that may work out very well for everyone. I really hate to upset her by taking her eggs but there's no point in having her set them.

I raise Muscovy for meat both for my own table and for sale to a local restaurant. I may very well also sell ducklings as pets. It may sound incongruous but I tend to prefer to raise them and slaughter them humanely rather then sell them to people who may or may not take good care of them.

My dogs are also very fond of eggs so if I have extra duck eggs they are more than willing to help me with that.

 

[emichels]

That's our plan to, to raise for meat and eggs. Right now we only have two that are laying, but plan on keeping some for laying from this hatch. One of my duck seem to be unable to lay so she might be first one we slaughter.

 

[emichels]

So duckling are about 2 weeks old and mama has them out all day rain or shine, should I be worried about them getting cold?

 

[Janie hall]

Hello i have two 10 day old muscovys. I also have 2 khaki campbell ducks that r around 9 weeks old. Hoe can i safely introduce babies so they can be safe they seem to be ok with darker one but yellow and black one not so much

Grandson named the yellow one Batman

 

[jake and pippa]

That may be too much of an age difference. You may have to keep the Muscovy separate for several weeks.

 

[tmorgan46]

If you can place them in a way they can see each other but not harm the other is best. We place any bird being integrated into a wire dog kennel right in the middle of everyone and let them see and hear each other. It takes a few times and the first few times we let them get close its under very close supervision. Time and patience is the key.

 

[jake and pippa]

I also use dog crates for introducing birds. Usually airline crates because that's what I have. I did recently introduced to larger groups of docs without any crates. My older docs (9 weeks) are not friendly to individual young ducks (4 weeks) but when there was two larger groups they just by nature kept separate and there were no conflicts. But that is in a large area over an acre where they had plenty of space to avoid each other.

 

[emichels]

So what do you recommend for flooring in duck coop?

 

[Janie hall]

I am happy to say the peek and boo (khaki campbells) are acting as parents all is good with batman and heusner