We kept a pair of Anconas for a bit over a year before a fox had them for dinner. Ours were excellent layers, but hadn't been selected for meat qualities and were small. The quickest way to pull up size is to hatch lots of offspring, weigh at your desired age (12 weeks, for example), and cull out the smallest 50%. Each gender is weighed and culled separately. You can then go on to cull the remaining for finer points as they age.I raise Ancona ducks. I chose them because they're decent for both meat and eggs. Working on getting my birds bigger, faster. I have a stream running through our yard, and the ducks free range without wrecking the garden too much. They work really well for our property, and we all love to eat roast duck!
I raised a little group of geese a couple years ago, we're eating the last one for Easter, in fact. The problem I ran into was geese bothering my toddler and not enough fencing to contain them. So they moved next door to my parents'sheep pasture and we split the group after butchering. I really like geese to have and to eat, but i shouldn't get any until these management issues are resolved. I keep telling this to myself
In my case, I actually skinned it because I was in a hurry that day. When I plucked the ducks I only had issues with the tiny down feathers; the outer feathers came right off after scalding with dish soap. Plucking wax is recommended if you have a larger number to process.
Awesome! I would say to take a close at the heavy breeds: Appleyard, Saxony, Pekin, and Rouen. You should also consider Muscovy, which taste beefy (your husband might like them better). Lastly, you could look at the medium breeds: Buff, Cayuga, and Swedish. I think the light breeds might disappoint you in regards to size. Other than that, basically just pick a breed that you enjoy and would like to look at every day. You can, of course, have a mixed flock as well to try out various breeds.
