BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[bramblefir]

May I join? I'll be starting to breed my ducks for production soon.

Welcome! What breed of ducks do you raise? I just lost my breeding pair of Welsh Harlequins to foxes about 2 weeks ago.

I *love* Lenny's coloring thus far. He's going to be a stunner!
You can live vicariously through us, we're getting ducks and a pair of geese for next Christmas' celebration (and to de-forest our pond of the assorted weeds that have taken over....). I grew up on a Muscovy duck operation in Puerto Rico, and the ducks are so much fun; They are the biggest goof-balls.... but just *SO* gross to brood and contain. If we didn't have the pond, I'm not sure if I'd be getting waterfowl again. 

What kind of geese and ducks are you getting? Love my geese! Did you get your pond water issue dealt with?

 

[GabrielBane]

Welcome! What breed of ducks do you raise? I just lost my breeding pair of Welsh Harlequins to foxes about 2 weeks ago.
What kind of geese and ducks are you getting? Love my geese! Did you get your pond water issue dealt with?

I want to get dewlap africans, but I'm thinking we'll settle for a better foraging breed like Brown Chinese (I like the looks of the swan goose descendants.)


It's currently being dealt with, we believe the major source of the water issue happened during Hurricane Matthew, when we saw a rainbow colored sheen on the water, which then sparked a rapid growth of lilly pads and sub-aquatic plants which choked all fish besides guppies out. We're having someone professionally skim whatever the sheen is off of the surface, and then having that same team send a diver down to make sure the source of the bloom wasn't large vegetation/trees that could've sank to the bottom of our pond due to the storm's erosion (and in the process, whatever fertilizer our grandfather had sprayed on it, would now be in the water). We'll see. We're for sure doing the muscovies, because I love the foraging they do (and the females are gorgeous!) and they're great eating, and will be satisfied with kiddie pools, which we have about 15 extra of, we found them on sale at the dollar tree. We used them as brooders back home (although I remember one year we lost an entire 25 duckling brood to a cheaply made kiddie pool melting.... what a nightmare.), and then later we would double stack them and put them in the ground for them to swim in.

 

[Turk Raphael]

I want to get dewlap africans, but I'm thinking we'll settle for a better foraging breed like Brown Chinese (I like the looks of the swan goose descendants.)


It's currently being dealt with, we believe the major source of the water issue happened during Hurricane Matthew, when we saw a rainbow colored sheen on the water, which then sparked a rapid growth of lilly pads and sub-aquatic plants which choked all fish besides guppies out. We're having someone professionally skim whatever the sheen is off of the surface, and then having that same team send a diver down to make sure the source of the bloom wasn't large vegetation/trees that could've sank to the bottom of our pond due to the storm's erosion (and in the process, whatever fertilizer our grandfather had sprayed on it, would now be in the water). We'll see. We're for sure doing the muscovies, because I love the foraging they do (and the females are gorgeous!) and they're great eating, and will be satisfied with kiddie pools, which we have about 15 extra of, we found them on sale at the dollar tree. We used them as brooders back home (although I remember one year we lost an entire 25 duckling brood to a cheaply made kiddie pool melting.... what a nightmare.), and then later we would double stack them and put them in the ground for them to swim in.

I have so strongly considered the white Moscovies, bred especially for meat. I had planned to drive to Pa. to pick them up.

If I hadn't decided to 'down-size', I would already have had them. The hatchery wouldn't ship to WV but I haven't even bothered to check about KY. I'm afraid to check, for fear they might ship here! lololol

 

[GabrielBane]

I have so strongly considered the white Moscovies, bred especially for meat. I had planned to drive to Pa. to pick them up.

If I hadn't decided to 'down-size', I would already have had them. The hatchery wouldn't ship to WV but I haven't even bothered to check about KY. I'm afraid to check, for fear they might ship here! lololol

Back home we had pieds/wild-type, I've seen some of the "meat" type white birds, they're MONSTERS. Our ducks were quite large, but not comparatively to some of the new lines of whites out there (but again, my great grand-mother sold off most of her ducks in 2002? Not sure what kind of birds were in the US at the time) , if you get the bug again, you can get ducklings from us, we'll ship to ya.

 

[Turk Raphael]

Back home we had pieds/wild-type, I've seen some of the "meat" type white birds, they're MONSTERS. Our ducks were quite large, but not comparatively to some of the new lines of whites out there (but again, my great grand-mother sold off most of her ducks in 2002? Not sure what kind of birds were in the US at the time) , if you get the bug again, you can get ducklings from us, we'll ship to ya.

I appreciate your offer but I am so partial to the modified whites. Thanks for the generous offer!!!!

 

[NanaKat]

My big surprise is a chick from my most recent hatch - no name yet, but he's actually bigger than either of the two boys above were at 3 weeks, but has a slower overall growth rate. Still, I see potential here:

I like his broad head as well as those large feet. Should have good size when he matures. Great color on Andres and Lenny.

 

[holm25]

I found this weird and mostly untrue. What do you guys think? Old oriental breeds are not genetically modified to be big?

 

[dan26552]

Hey, Dan!!!! Welcome to the Breeding for Production thread.   

- Ant Farm 

Hello Fire

Absolutely and WELCOME!!!!

Thanks

Dan's cool! Dan built his own incubator and had an amazing hatch in tandem with mine! Dan's about to set duck eggs! Dan's cool! 

Dan, this thread is about production - there's lots of talk about meat, but eggs are part of it too. Tell everyone about your duck egg production compared to chickens...

(I tell ya', if I didn't already have all those chicks coming, I'd be getting ducks this year...)

- Ant Farm 

Lol! Thanks. Don't ya think the praises are a little high though?

Ok, if you insist.
I am currently getting twice as many eggs from my ducks as my chickens but with 1/4 as many birds. I have 6 laying age ducks and 20 laying hens that are the same age (one year) I am getting 4 eggs a day from the ducks and only 2 eggs from the chickens(if I'm lucky), it's not because it's winter either as the ducks outlaid the chickens last summer too. I watched and counted and it seems like my ducks tend take one day off about every 3 weeks, once they start they rarely stop.

Welcome! What breed of ducks do you raise? I just lost my breeding pair of Welsh Harlequins to foxes about 2 weeks ago.
What kind of geese and ducks are you getting? Love my geese! Did you get your pond water issue dealt with?

I have 6 full pekins (5 hens and a drake), 2 blue Swedish (a pair) one black Swedish drake ( he's getting replaced) and a mallard. I also have three "ducklings" that are 4 months old that one of my pekins hatched out. (She actually hatched 60% of her eggs but one died shortly after hatch, one was just really weak and the other nobody really knows how he died.) any way I ended up with a gen and two drakes, the hen I'm pretty sure is part mallard as she's only slightly larger than my mallard drake. One of the boys will likely end up as dinner The other is replacing the black Swedish, he's HUGE! He's two days younger than the other ducklings but always looked about a week older, he was (and is) about twice their size. He was butcher size at about 10 or 12 weeks old and at 4 months is almost larger than my year old pekin drake, so I'm keeping him and getting rid of the smaller black swede since I want a nice sized table bird. I don't know who his parents are but I'm guessing they are both pekins.

 

[Turk Raphael]

I found this weird and mostly untrue. What do you guys think? Old oriental breeds are not genetically modified to be big?

Some get quite large but this link is just so much crapola. Someone is trying to get into the pockets of 'size-queens'. All non-sense. jajajajaja

 

[jarcoo0153]

Hi ladies and gents!

I'm in need of some advice....

Last June I purchase ee, welsummers, barnevelders and marans from the hatchery I had roosters to match the hens for breeding. But I had some bad luck and am down to just two barnevelder roosters and these hen. So I think I will just breed for egg production and egg colors.
So my question is if I cross the dark egg breeds will I still get dark eggs?

Will I get some hybrid vigor out of these birds?
Bigger birds? More eggs?

I plan on hatching for olive eggs too because my customers like the colored eggs.

I just don't know if I need to control the breeding or let nature do its thing and me just sell the birds I don't like from the hatches?

I also thought about putting my buff Orpington roo over te cuckoo marans to hatch out sex links and keep the hens for eggs and raise the males on pasture for meat.

What do y'all think?