Bantam Muscovies

[CluckyJay]

For me, mainly to have both standard and bantam size. I LOVE tiny versions of standard breeds! And to sell. People would probably buy "mini-ducks". As far as a homesteading prospect, they would probably eat less and still put off a good amount of meat and still be good pest control. I wasn't thinking about making them a half of a pound. That would be cool though. And it would give me a valid excuse to keep a lot of Muscovies. I love them sooo much.

 

[Miss Lydia]

For me, mainly to have both standard and bantam size. I LOVE tiny versions of standard breeds! And to sell. People would probably buy "mini-ducks". As far as a homesteading prospect, they would probably eat less and still put off a good amount of meat and still be good pest control. I wasn't thinking about making them a half of a pound. That would be cool though. And it would give me a valid excuse to keep a lot of Muscovies. I love them sooo much.

Let us know how it goes. I love Muscovies too!

 

[Resolution]

I read that fertile males are hatched from hybrids produced via artificial insemination between maned geese drakes and muscovy ducks. The hybrids have been bred back to muscovy but I don't recall there being any description of a second generation hybrid. The first generation were of intermediate size and a maned goose is hardly bigger than a wood duck.

 

[CluckyJay]

I have a question about bantams. If I bred out into another breed, they wouldn't be Muscovies, right? Or do you just have to keep breeding the offspring until you get a small, able to reproduce true, replica of the original?

 

[Resolution]

Muscovies are not a breed but rather a species.


Quote:
Scientists have produced fertile hybrids, invariably males, in experiments (according to published reports, personal conversations and unpublished notes of scientists) with related species including Spur Winged Goose, Maned Goose, White Winged Duck, Brazilian Duck, Steamer Duck, and Mandarin Duck. I don't know of any recent attempts save the Australian Pygmy Goose hybrid that resulted in fertile offspring and that was via artificial incubation. Some small percent of male offspring evidently proved at least partially fertile. I remember also reading about an experiment in Japan breeding Mandarin ducks with other ducks to determine relatedness. Hybrids with the closely related Wood Duck were only generated a very few times and those hybrids never attained male plumage and may have been sterile I don't recall- but strangely hybrids, again via artificial insemination with the muscovy and I think a shelduck of some species produced a small percentage of fertile male progeny- I remember being surprised at the level of fertility of eggs of the Mandarin X Muscovy cross but don't recall how many actually hatched or what percentage of the males were fertile- I've never heard of a second generation hybrid other than with the Comb Duck and White winged duck- but don't know that this has ever been an objective of the scientists. Other hybrids with these related waterfowl species have occurred naturally in captive situations and the hybrids never bred but that doesn't mean they were necessarily sterile.

Anyway- the muscovy cross if one were ever produced- that was a "bantam" , for example White Mandarin X Muscovy would theoretically be bred back to muscovy and selectively bred for generations. By the time fertile females were being produced umpteenth generations later I think they'd be considered muscovies I would imagine. They may well be of hybrid origin themselves. Authors have suggested the Comb Duck may be a second paternal ancestor of the first domestic muscovy.

I know certain domestic dabbling ducks have wild dabbling duck species other than mallards in their genetic makeup and I think we would all just assume they were descended of the mallard and as such domestic mallards. All those dabbling ducks are fully fertile when crossed so that's problematic to begin with. I read somewhere in Japanese literature that molecular data revealed that the East Indies duck is the product of Philippines Duck X Mallard hybrids. Similarly Indian Runner Ducks and some other old Asiatic breeds have other species of dabbling ducks involved in their genetic makeup- these ducks all resembling female mallards with no difference in plumage between the genders. They've all been selectively bred for so many hundreds of years it's difficult to imagine them even having wild ancestors and their genetics are probably in the bloodlines of more modern breeds like the Cayuga and Khaki Campbell respectively.

 

[CluckyJay]

So you think the quickest way would be to cross the Mandarin to the Muscovy, and then just keep selectively breeding the resulting offspring? Maybe breed the offspring back to a line of Scovies that already grow to a smaller size? I wonder how many generations until that would work. I think I'll have to pass, I doubt hubby would go for buying Mandarin ducks, at least until I have an aviary built. The Mandarins would be easier for me to get my hands on than the others.

Thank you.

 

[Resolution]

I don't know how to about it. I think it would have to one of the more experienced horticulturists. It takes a lot of skill and exhaustive documentation. I tried following the selective breeding blue prints of a few marans lines that had history to before the second world war and that just included some Langshan bred to a Marandaise stock that was largely game cock of some kind. Then I tried following Ghigi's notes to understand how he bred domestic guineafowl couldn't really follow after a point as he started assigning numbers to specific individuals and then tacked them to lineages- then the specimen would be like 1598 ab _square or some other complex thing. I don't think it would be easy because so many birds would be sterile you'd have to wait and breed every single drake with a muscovy duck and keep them for a few years before determining if they were fertile or not. The offspring would tend to produce birds intermediate in size and I suppose this is how you could arrive at a mini miskito duck.

According to some Balinese poultiers I met at a Japanese poultry conference, that's how those tiny bantams were created- Sri Lanka JF can breed to a chicken but not much fertility of females- those females that are fertile lay tiny eggs and from them tiny chicks. Those tiny chicks that mature to themselves produce normal eggs throw more of the same. It's just a trend. Grey Jf hybrids with chickens produce yellow skin/legs and general meanness- in later generations of stock bred interse for a generations. A cross between a grey and a Sri Lanka will produce a rumpless or a squirrel tail but very rarely anything resembling a normal tail- some percentage of those hybrids tend will not develop adult male plumage. Those grey Sri Lanka hybrids bred together interse for a few generations tend to be larger and more prone to henny feathering in subsequent generations. When that stock bred to a domestic hen- that triple cross is at the foundation of breeds like the ancient fighting cocks- the primitive progenitor of the Asil. That bird was basically a Sumatran/Minohiki/Yokohama like creature- of course unlike the Minohiki and Yokohama- the Sumatra has the additional genetics of the Green involved as well.
--Strange how another similar cross- without the Grey or Green JF involved produces mini birds with messed up or absent tails and the other one with grey bred to domestic red produces big birds with ample tails that are held grey jf style trailing on the ground with the lax plumage of the Sri Lanka draping over the body like curtained saddles.

Anyway- the ducks- I don't know how that would work but if these theoretical Mandarin Muscovy hybrids are similar to what old poultiers from previous centuries used - those jf hybrids with domestic fighting game- then it would take forever and 85% of the birds would be sterile- and then you could only breed them back to maternal species- which happens to be the larger of the two parental species. You'd have to use a domestic mutation of the muscovy that was super inbred -likely of the larger sizes because they have most everything bred out of them- blank slates- but the tendency might be for ginormous progeny not midgets- -ducklings that hatched from a second generation- and that would take additional pen space- lots of it- as only the males would be used but more muscovy ducks- their daughters or the grandaughters of a still more thoroughly muscovy progeny- with a higher percentage of Muscovy parents- likely- only when the females became fecund at some future point would midgets be born- then the poultier selectionist is in for a decade or more exhaustive select breeding with a great percentage of the offspring being fertile or only producing ducklings with serious infirmities- there would always be that one or two lines that produced what you wanted but the dedication and focus and facilities make that a very big investment in time with no guarantee of the outcome you had hoped for.

Besides all that there is the ethical considerations to speak toward- but personally- in my opinion if no wild species are being used- a domestic mutation of the mandarin and a domestic mutation of the muscovy what's the harm in it. Two domestic breeds derived of hybridization bred together-that's where the Chinese Goose came from - part Swan Goose- part Thick Billed Bean Goose- Part Eastern Greylag Part Western Greylag. Likely only males fertile when the entirely fertile swan goose X bean goose is bred to the entirely fertile greylag X greylag- their progeny- only the males would likely be fertile- that took thousands of years to work out- From that ancient domestic breed the Chinese derived thet the African created by the Boers from Toulouse bred to Chinese- and select bred-and there's the White African created by the English using White Embden and Chinese and select bred. Those are very nice geese.

The long-tailed chicken breed people have to go through all that with Green JF hybrids and they've managed out pretty good but the Japanese did the lions share of the work- a thousand years likely before the first long tail arrived in the west- and where now male Green JF hybrids are being occasionally used once again to recalibrate the genes lost in all these centuries of outbreeding with domestic chickens with no Green Jf in their ancestry-all to produce a long tailed race of chickens-but most of the hens are sterile or produce very few if any eggs that chicks actually hatch from- it takes so many generations of outcrossing a hybrid back to the domestic parental species . For the onagadori the culls are bred though shamo to become koeyoshi- maybe the culls of the muscovy hybrids would end up making enormous ducks that look like godzilla and beep like a dinosaur-had an extra leg or something. monstrosiy

It is so stormy out here on the cape- I'm on Martha's Vineyard for a few months- too much tea and stupid me had the television removed.
Sorry to be so wordy- bored blameless

 

[Miss Lydia]

I don't know how to about it. I think it would have to one of the more experienced horticulturists. It takes a lot of skill and exhaustive documentation. I tried following the selective breeding blue prints of a few marans lines that had history to before the second world war and that just included some Langshan bred to a Marandaise stock that was largely game cock of some kind. Then I tried following Ghigi's notes to understand how he bred domestic guineafowl couldn't really follow after a point as he started assigning numbers to specific individuals and then tacked them to lineages- then the specimen would be like 1598 ab _square or some other complex thing. I don't think it would be easy because so many birds would be sterile you'd have to wait and breed every single drake with a muscovy duck and keep them for a few years before determining if they were fertile or not. The offspring would tend to produce birds intermediate in size and I suppose this is how you could arrive at a mini miskito duck.

According to some Balinese poultiers I met at a Japanese poultry conference, that's how those tiny bantams were created- Sri Lanka JF can breed to a chicken but not much fertility of females- those females that are fertile lay tiny eggs and from them tiny chicks. Those tiny chicks that mature to themselves produce normal eggs throw more of the same. It's just a trend. Grey Jf hybrids with chickens produce yellow skin/legs and general meanness- in later generations of stock bred interse for a generations. A cross between a grey and a Sri Lanka will produce a rumpless or a squirrel tail but very rarely anything resembling a normal tail- some percentage of those hybrids tend will not develop adult male plumage. Those grey Sri Lanka hybrids bred together interse for a few generations tend to be larger and more prone to henny feathering in subsequent generations. When that stock bred to a domestic hen- that triple cross is at the foundation of breeds like the ancient fighting cocks- the primitive progenitor of the Asil. That bird was basically a Sumatran/Minohiki/Yokohama like creature- of course unlike the Minohiki and Yokohama- the Sumatra has the additional genetics of the Green involved as well.
--Strange how another similar cross- without the Grey or Green JF involved produces mini birds with messed up or absent tails and the other one with grey bred to domestic red produces big birds with ample tails that are held grey jf style trailing on the ground with the lax plumage of the Sri Lanka draping over the body like curtained saddles.

Anyway- the ducks- I don't know how that would work but if these theoretical Mandarin Muscovy hybrids are similar to what old poultiers from previous centuries used - those jf hybrids with domestic fighting game- then it would take forever and 85% of the birds would be sterile- and then you could only breed them back to maternal species- which happens to be the larger of the two parental species. You'd have to use a domestic mutation of the muscovy that was super inbred -likely of the larger sizes because they have most everything bred out of them- blank slates- but the tendency might be for ginormous progeny not midgets- -ducklings that hatched from a second generation- and that would take additional pen space- lots of it- as only the males would be used but more muscovy ducks- their daughters or the grandaughters of a still more thoroughly muscovy progeny- with a higher percentage of Muscovy parents- likely- only when the females became fecund at some future point would midgets be born- then the poultier selectionist is in for a decade or more exhaustive select breeding with a great percentage of the offspring being fertile or only producing ducklings with serious infirmities- there would always be that one or two lines that produced what you wanted but the dedication and focus and facilities make that a very big investment in time with no guarantee of the outcome you had hoped for.

Besides all that there is the ethical considerations to speak toward- but personally- in my opinion if no wild species are being used- a domestic mutation of the mandarin and a domestic mutation of the muscovy what's the harm in it. Two domestic breeds derived of hybridization bred together-that's where the Chinese Goose came from - part Swan Goose- part Thick Billed Bean Goose- Part Eastern Greylag Part Western Greylag. Likely only males fertile when the entirely fertile swan goose X bean goose is bred to the entirely fertile greylag X greylag- their progeny- only the males would likely be fertile- that took thousands of years to work out- From that ancient domestic breed the Chinese derived thet the African created by the Boers from Toulouse bred to Chinese- and select bred-and there's the White African created by the English using White Embden and Chinese and select bred. Those are very nice geese.

The long-tailed chicken breed people have to go through all that with Green JF hybrids and they've managed out pretty good but the Japanese did the lions share of the work- a thousand years likely before the first long tail arrived in the west- and where now male Green JF hybrids are being occasionally used once again to recalibrate the genes lost in all these centuries of outbreeding with domestic chickens with no Green Jf in their ancestry-all to produce a long tailed race of chickens-but most of the hens are sterile or produce very few if any eggs that chicks actually hatch from- it takes so many generations of outcrossing a hybrid back to the domestic parental species . For the onagadori the culls are bred though shamo to become koeyoshi- maybe the culls of the muscovy hybrids would end up making enormous ducks that look like godzilla and beep like a dinosaur-had an extra leg or something. monstrosiy

It is so stormy out here on the cape- I'm on Martha's Vineyard for a few months- too much tea and stupid me had the television removed.
Sorry to be so wordy- bored blameless

Okay if your bored then talk about how Muscovies came form the wild color of Black to all the colors we are seeing today. as you said about possibly 85%would be sterile, so that leaves 15% that are mating and making these other colors?
Never mind I see you have already addressed it. I didn't read up far enough

 

[CluckyJay]

I'd say its like with foxes and wolves. Remember that program that bred the foxes and came up with all those random coat patterns? It just takes some time and planning. I will come back and read all that you posted, my poor brain is fried right now, LOL.

Thanks for posting guys and I'll try and get back ASAP with an intelligent response, LOL!!!!

 

[hossfeathers]

I didn't see this thread earlier - put me down as someone who would be interested in how the bantum 'Scovies turned out.