Best Duck?

[farmertank]

Muscovy ducks

Julie

 

[LittleSquidgenHome]

Pekins are the most eaten because they grow quickly, large, and efficiently and the white plumage makes them easy to pick and gives a clean carcass. I personally think Pekins are too fatty. BUT I havent ever pasture raised my own, they could be quite lean if raised on pasture I suppose.

Muscovy are delicious, and they are leaner than Pekins, and will hatch MASSIVE clutches and make excellent mommies reducing the need to artificially incubate of brood offspring. I have yet to have a Scovie hen NOT go broody, they will try and try and try all season. If you like fatty duck, Pekin is probably the way to go, but if you like lean meat attached to personality filled little dinosaurs Muscovies are for you.

They DO fly VERY well, the girls do anyway, the boys are typically too fat HA!, BUT you can simply clip flight feathers, this is completely painless for the duck, and they will be grounded till the next molt. It can be a challenge, and painful for YOU, if you don't have friendly ducks to clip feathers.

Down side, even with winter lighting, MY Muscovy hens only lay seasonally during breeding season and are not keen on being broken up or laying again after a hatch. We probably only got 60 or so eggs per hen all year.

We have Muscovy and Ancona ducks. The Ancona keep us in a constant overflow of eggs, as well as ducklings to sell, we also butcher culls, and the Muscovy keep us in an overflow of ducklings to grow out and butcher, as well as providing our incubation and brooding. If we end up with the room in the next few years we will add Silver Appleyards, mostly because I think they are beautiful and for the conservation end.

It is really about what is more important to you. You might try a small number of a few types to start off and see which you like best. If you have the room, that is what I suggest. That is what worked for us. Best of luck!

 

[Wifezilla]

My favorite duck is a Welsh Harlequin. They are supposed to be a good meat duck as well as a champion egg layer. I can vouch for the good egg laying but we have yet to eat one. We are on a first name basis with them all so the eating part may never happen.

 

[katharinad]

Pekins are a favorite, but their meat more fatty. The meat will remain fatty even it they free range all day. It's just in their genes. Slower growing ducks build better muscle meat and are leaner. Multi-purpose ducks are in general the heavy breeds, which are just to heavy to fly. So you are looking at Appleyard, Aylesbury, Muscovy, Rouen, and Saxony. Pekins are also a heavy breed, but their are different in their grows rate and meat composition. Out of those the best egg producers are Appleyard 200-270, and Saxony 190-240. The rest is under 125, while Pekin comes in at 125-225. I personally have Saxony ducks and love their personality. They are smart, so be prepared for lock picking etc. Best to give them some toys because the get into trouble if bored. Did I mention they love to pull the food bowl away from the others. Quite funny to watch.

 

[lakota_elder]

Welsh Harlequins are my favorites..... if they're not brooding they're laying.... and they make a delicious meal.... too bad I can't eat what I raise.... else I would no longer be buying chicken... My Harleys are free range with plenty of greens and a 15% layer mix and bread every day.... I get an egg, from each hen, almost every day.....

here's my young golden drake....

 

[CityChicker]

It all just depends on what you want and your personal preferences. A lot of people prefer white ducks for meat because they produce a cleaner looking carcass. As far as egg production, there are several breeds that all produce similar amounts of eggs. In my experience, the hybrid layers are generally the best layers, but the difference between them and for example a good laying strain of Cambells/Runners/WH/etc... is negligible. If I wanted a top laying duck that could also be used for meat, I personally would go with the Metzer White Layer. That is just my agribusiness mind thinking though.

If you want something that is a little more colorful, but still a great dual purpose duck that can produce a decent carcass and lots of eggs, my next pick would probably be Welsh Harlequins. A lot of it is just personal preference. I, personally, do not like the taste of duck. My brother though is in the meat production business. His most popular meat ducks are Muscovies and Muscovy-hybrids. They produce a leaner meat that a lot of people seem to prefer the taste of. It is all up to you and what is most important to you!

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

The Welsh Harlequin was admitted to the American Poultry Association's Standard of Perfection in 2001. The breed is considered to be critically endangered in North America by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, with only a 188 breeding birds found in a 2000 census.

I would LOVE to breed those for conservation, but knowing this I could never send one to freezer camp!!!

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

The Silver Appleyard Duck is a breed of domestic duck. Only 128 breeding Silver Appleyard Ducks were reported in a 2000 census of domestic waterfowl in North America.

OMG these ones too!!!

 

[CityChicker]

With all due respect, can I speak honestly? The numbers quoted by the ALBC are a joke. I mean seriously, an absolute total joke. They are quite arbitrary and grossly inaccurate. Really, their abuse of terms like "endangered" is actually almost offensive. WH are not by any stretch of the imagination "rare" in the context of animals that are truly "rare". There are likely no less than tens of thousands of WH in the US alone. That is pretty much the case with several, if not most, of the birds on the ALBC lists. Others have pointed this out before and I think it was Goosedragon that even tried to volunteer for them and get more accurate numbers and was denied the opportunity to do so. I could go on and on as to what the truth is, but I will bite my tongue. LOL.

Conserving these breeds is awesome. I love to see people focusing on rarer varieties, but there is nothing rare enough about a WH that someone should feel guilty eating one. LOL.

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

LoL... good to know!!! Being a beginner to ducks I would have no idea if these were true or not... I just happened to run across that quote there...

So the top three I am looking at are;

Welsh Harlequins
Silver Appleyard
Saxony

Any more entries?

Oh and Muscovy sounds delicious, I just cannot get over the red things on their face, and I have to have animals I love.