Waterfowl for Meat Production Thread - Ducks, Geese, and Muscovies

[bramblefir]

I haven't really seen any good, active threads about raising waterfowl for meat production. Lots and lots of chicken threads, of course, but not much on the webbed feet front. So, this thread is for chatting about raising, managing, butchering, and cooking ducks, muscovies, and geese.

Currently in my brooder I have a pair of American Buff goslings, Welsh Harlequin ducklings, Grimaud Hybrid Pekins, a Muscovy, and some chicks (English Orps and Golden Cuckoo Marans). They are being brooded in a 12'x12' rubber matted horse stall. The heat source is a Premier 1 heat plate for 50 chicks. Mostly just the chicks use it now as the waterfowl prefer snuggling together in the straw. All of the waterfowl are 3 weeks and the chicks are 4 weeks.


Goslings with Welsh Harlequins:


There are 2 Grimaud Hybrid Ducklings front and center. They're almost as big as the goslings. You can just barely see the back of the GC Marans cockerel between the ducklings.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Stormcrow, I'm curious why you don't yet have a educator badge. It needs to happen! I learn a lot from you every time you post!

Just relaying my experiences, and things I've read, consistently, from sources I trust. No big thing. I've only been at this 14 months. Forums like these present me in good light, but I really am best in small quantities. In person over a significant period, I'm revealed to be an insufferable @$$ - its how I'm wired.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I’m wondering if this thread is still active?
I had a mixed flock of Cayuga and Khaki Campbell ducks, and was looking to add some geese, but my flock just got killed. So, I’m starting over.
My husband and kids really like the look of the Cayuga, so I have more of them ordered. I got a couple more Khaki Campbell, because I was enjoying the egg production we were getting. And, I’ve ordered several geese. A couple Africans, a couple pilgrims, and maybe a couple French Toulouse. I may add in some Embdens too. The geese are absolutely for meat, because my husband brought home a Canada goose last fall, and my whole family loved it. The kids have been asking all year if he could shoot us more geese, and been heartily disappointed that there are hunting seasons, and now is not one of them. So, we have decided to raise the geese ourselves.
I hadn’t had a chance to try cooking one of our ducks before they were all lost, so hopefully in a year or so, I’ll be able to give it a shot. I like the idea of darker meat, animals that are a little more cold/ wet hardy (I live in Idaho), and will still provide some eggs.
My goal is to raise them to probably 18-24 months, and then cull for meat, and a manageable flock.

No, you've resurrected this thread from the grave. Might want to try looking here instead for an active thread.

I raise Pekin ducks myself for meat, very tasty, and while we sell our chicken eggs, we typically keep all our duck eggs for ourselves. Makes fantastic mayonnaise. and any egg dish you can imagine (though you have to adjust baking recipes, due to size). Recommend NOT keeping to 18-24 months then processing, the meat will be very tough by that point, and the weight gain will be minimal.

If you have the space, recommend you keep one adult drake, as many hens as you can comfortably manage (at least 6) so he doesn't over mate and injure. You go more than half a year before you you will see any eggs, and chances are, you buy straight run, so buy 10-12, cull all the males for the table expect your best growing one along the way. Hopefully, you get a broody, otherwise, its periodic incubation (and I personally have terrible luck incubating duck eggs, success rates have been quite low - 30-40%). You will always be looking for a new male to replace the current drake (who becomes sausage), and cull any obviously underperforming hens, or hens "aging out". They also make good ground meat, which can be used for the aforementioned sausage, tacos, hamburgers, etc.

I expect eggs around seven months, with frequency between 2 days in 3 and 3 in 4 (seasonally variable) and have processed ducks up to 8.5# regularly. Carcass yield is not as good as with (meat) chickens at a young age, closer to 60% than 70%, depending on your knife work, but comparable to young dual purpose breeds of chicken that put on bone first, and meat second.

Hope that helps. I rarely drop into the duck and geese forums, but they are there and a good source of expertise I don't have.

 

[Mini Meat]

I am very interested in this thread. I don't have any water fowl... YET, but I am considering adding them. I am leaning t'ward Muscovy as I have heard they have the most "beef like" meat.

I will be looking forward to hearing what folks have to say on the subject of water fowl for meat.

 

[bramblefir]

I just got back from the grocery store and noticed they had frozen geese (less than a year old) at $67 for an 11 pound bird. A 6 pound frozen duck was $21.

I had already started thinking about raising ducks and geese for meat, but now I'm gonna get real serious about doing my research. I have plenty of room, outbuilding,etc. Just need to come up with a cost effective plan. So I'm gonna be lurking around this thread to get tips, and will share my successes and failures.

I would recommend starting with a small order from Metzer's. In particular, their Grimaud Hybrid Pekins just to start with and then whatever medium or heavy breed of goose appeals to you. The Pilgrim, American Buff, and Sebastopol typically have the best temperaments. Sebastopols are expensive though, so you might scratch them off your list if you're looking for cost effective options.

Geese are actually cheaper to raise out than chickens if you have access to pasture for them. They can get the majority of their diet from grass and weeds - something in the vicinity of 80%. I only provide feed for mine 1x a day and they usually have food leftover 12 hours later.

Here are my Buffs out in the snow last week:

 

[aliciaplus3]

We did a trial run several months ago and my husband looked up crispy duck on google the recipe he chose turned out wonderfully and I believe we finally found something he likes about ducks,,,,, to eat them. I was very pleasantly surprised with how dark the meat is. I believe someone had compared it to steak and i feel they were pretty close, I like dark meat over white meat any day.

 

[SunshineMary]

I'm hoping to revive this thread too. I am curious what weigts people are getting on their geese after processing. I did 5 recently and they were only 5-6 lbs. they look nice but I was expecting larger. I google imaged "christmas goose" and they all look like mine, not super meaty. My geese are pilgrims.View attachment 1165520

We hatched out Pilgrims over several dates this past spring and slaughtered them at 16 to 18 weeks. They ranged from 6 to 8 pounds, which is smaller than we would like. We should have let them go until 22 to 24 weeks I think, but we were eager to send them off to freezer camp because the young ganders were such a gang of thugs and went around beating up the ducks, menacing the chickens, and rumbling with the turkeys. Next year we will make some changes to our set up so that we can let them grow out longer.

Here is a picture of one of the ganders on the left with a Cornish Cross chicken on the right for comparison:

 

[KariStucki]

I’m wondering if this thread is still active?
I had a mixed flock of Cayuga and Khaki Campbell ducks, and was looking to add some geese, but my flock just got killed. So, I’m starting over.
My husband and kids really like the look of the Cayuga, so I have more of them ordered. I got a couple more Khaki Campbell, because I was enjoying the egg production we were getting. And, I’ve ordered several geese. A couple Africans, a couple pilgrims, and maybe a couple French Toulouse. I may add in some Embdens too. The geese are absolutely for meat, because my husband brought home a Canada goose last fall, and my whole family loved it. The kids have been asking all year if he could shoot us more geese, and been heartily disappointed that there are hunting seasons, and now is not one of them. So, we have decided to raise the geese ourselves.
I hadn’t had a chance to try cooking one of our ducks before they were all lost, so hopefully in a year or so, I’ll be able to give it a shot. I like the idea of darker meat, animals that are a little more cold/ wet hardy (I live in Idaho), and will still provide some eggs.
My goal is to raise them to probably 18-24 months, and then cull for meat, and a manageable flock.

 

[Parront]

Did you weigh them post processing for carcass yield??? I've only raised and processed Pekins, curious as to how the mixed breeds process out for comparison. Guessing its essentially the same, but would like to be surprised.

I weighed both drakes together. They were almost 5 pounds together, including backs and necks for soup. A little over 7 pounds live weight. They are not big in the breast meat department, pekins are meatier. You would do better with one 7 pound bird dressing out to the same five pounds, these guys will have twice as many bones! It is comparable to eating a layer breed cockerel, I would say. They have less fat than pekins.

 

[bramblefir]

I have 3 different age groups of goslings and didn't start tracking until last week. Goslings F and G are the oldest and are now primarily eating grass and showing some awesome growth rates. The larger one is 81.2 oz! Goslings A and B are 2 females from Ideal - interestingly their 1 week weights were lower than those I hatched here. The final group is C, D, and E and they were bred and hatched here. Sorry to anyone with OCD about the lack of alphabetical order on this chart.

Now the Welsh Harlequins. This is a mix of male and female ducklings. The heaviest, G, is 48.1 oz. The smallest, D, is quite runty at 30.4 oz.



And then the Hybrid Pekins. They're due to butcher out in 2 weeks at the ripe old age of 7 weeks. The largest is currently 71 oz and the smallest is 58.8.