Thank you Ron!! Nice seeing you again btw.
misfitmorgan answered the questions as well as anyone could!
@misfitmorgan Thanks but I would never opt to buy or even receive free eggs to hatch. Too much left to the caprice of the USPS.
Thats actually how i got half my muscovy, shipped eggs and my bresse, reese barred rock, crested cream legbar, polish, d'anver, d'uccle, sizzle, seabright, black java, mottled java, etc lol. Out of all the shipments i've only had two that came out bad, even the shipment with 4 cracked eggs in the box still had a 50% hatch rate. i do however understand not wanting shipped eggs, i would rather all mine came locally too.
Anyone shipping chicks or ducklings btw be careful the PO here has had 9 boxes of them arrive dead completely or mostly over the past month so something is going on at least in michigan.
I agree with what you have said, but the initial response almost implied that water was of no relevance to them. For the uninitiated, it would be misleading. That is what I was trying to make clear. It is not just that they love water, their natural history revolves around it. I will concede concerning "classification" etc.
Many animals move when necessary, but Muscovies are not a migratory waterfowl. They do not fly North for the summer, or south for the winter in the sense that our native waterfowl do. I do not doubt that they move from one place to another on occasion, and for different reasons. A migratory bird is one that is instinctively compelled to do so as part of a regular seasonal rhythm.
The inclination to fly and expand their range would keep me from working with them. I do not like things to go where I do not want them to. For example, the gardens. And that is where my interest in the larger geese resides. The ability to contain them and limit their range. I dismissed these as an option long ago for this reason.
Many other characteristics appealed to me, or the idea of them. There has been much that has appealed to me about waterfowl in general. If I was to go with a meat duck, it might be Pekins, for the ease of limiting their movement. Otherwise geese appeal to me.
I appreciate the thoughtful exchange. That is refreshing in a sense.
i agree as well i definately could have worded it more clearly to or mentioned they still need water.
No you are correct they do not have a migration drive, but they definately have picked up and flew off then come back in the spring(which was quite funny for the farmer who had butchered all his muscovy and then got up one spring day to find his yard full of well over 150 of them standing around waiting for their morning feed, he was not pleased lol)
They do not necassarily expand their range in a tradional sense. It's more like if their content they will just take shorter flights to stretch their wings like maybe a few hundred feet across the yard. i would be concerned with close by neighbors though, they may fly into their yard. Their not really any more problematic then chickens. My friend who lives about 5 miles from my house does not keep his muscovy penned in any form and their at his house 99% of the time though they do fly to a large pond about 2 blocks away sometimes for a few hours. i do agree the non-flight birds are a lot easier to keep where you want them. It is easy to limit pekin's movement but in comparison to the muscovy they eat more, their very loud, and poop way way more, so it all depends on your needs i suppose. Someone living with close neighbors might need silent ducks or less poo to get rid of. i personally really prefer the muscovy in attitude, noise, size, and personality, they are very calm.
@hellbender She did! But the answer to that question arouses another one. If Muscovy ducks get so large so fast why aren't they used more often than Pekins? Pekins are the ducks that get used at restaurants and such. If that is true about muscovys That they get that big than I just don't understand why they wouldn't be commercially produced on large farms for meat
They are produced for restaurants actually on larger farms 500-1000 birds, which is small scale when your talking commercial meat production but they are actually gaining popularity for their very lean meat and unique flavor. They also produce a lot of eggs and will hatch out up to 24 ducklings at a time if left alone. The pekin outweigh them in ease of raising, no flight, butcher at 65 days...its much like why do we eat corn X and not cornish rocks...ease of raising and butcher at a very young age even though older chickens taste better. Interestingly enough did anyone know that the U.S. Government was trying to decide on promoting chicken or rabbit as a "main" meat source and decided on chicken because it was easier for the homecook to butcher themselves....even though back then chickens took way longer to raise to butcher weight then rabbits and you dont have to pluck rabbits. Anyhow back to pekin, pekin is also a very popular duck because it has been eaten for so long, some of the earliest recorded peking duck made in china was somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 A.D. and started being farmed in china in roughly 900 A.D. The actual pekin ducks we have in the U.S. came from china in the 1870's...now compare that to the "lowly" muscovy, true wild muscovy are native to the americas and we raised by native americans long before europeans set foot here as a food source. So i guess the answer is basically...why do we eat beef instead of venison or bison, why do we eat chicken instead of pheasant.....during the earlier U.S. history caucasions did not want to eat what indians ate, they were superior and should eat british food, or french, etc. Basically the draw of some foreign "rare" duck cooked in a foreign style made pekin ducks popular. We did not limit the meat types we eat in the U.S. down to the big 3 until after the 1950's
It would seam that the 16% would be a layer ration, or a finisher. Maybe it is a maintenance feed of sorts. What is the brand name and what is it marketed as? Are you getting it from a small mill? You would be better off giving them chick starter which is formulated for growing chickens. It is not just the % CP, but the amino acid profile. Either a chick starter, a game bird starter,
or a feed formulated specifically for broilers.
16% is not ideal for growing chickens, and particularly if the % is dropped further by introducing scratch grains which averages 9-10%, and whole corn which averages 8%. It would not take much of either to drop it significantly and ruin the balance. Corn is high in few things other than energy. What your feeding them sounds like it would be good for putting some fat on them in the last week or two.
We get it from a local mill, a big mill serves 4 counties. It is marked as 16% protein textured poultry feed. Chick starter pen pals 18% CP, we tried meat maker(21%CP) they started pooping blood, local game feed is 18%, local fryer is 22%, local broiler is 21%, pen pals layer is 16%
I'm not sure how giving 16% plus scratch grains and corn would be giving them a worse diet.
16% CP Feed
10% CP shell corn(locally grown corn tests at 8-12%)
14% Scratch grains (mainly oats, BOSS, and black beans)
They also have access to millet sometimes cause they steal it from the pheasant
I figured a varied diet was more healthy
We have corn gluten at 60% CP we could probly mix some of that in if need be, if we mix 13lbs to the 100 it would be 21%......i however prefer them at a lower protein because we are trying to get them to grow slower, we dont like corn X meat texture at 8 week butcher.
But ain't moscovy females small? I think this is why pekins are used, closer in size?
I read something about 'mule ducks' once. Moscovy bred with another duck artificially to make them all the same size I think, and I think the males have no testes, already capons, 'mules'. Do you call castrated ducks capons?
Boy, now I'm going to have to look this all up.
I believe moscovy's have lean meat and pekins are definitely fatty, which I like. Duck fat is used often in 'fancy' cooking.
Muscovy females are smaller then males but the "smaller" is about the size of a pekin drake, pekin drakes are also quite a bit larger then females. Wild type muscovy drakes are about twice the size of a hen, production muscovy do not have as large of a size difference maybe 2/3s the size of the drakes. Ducks will interbred on their own if raised together, muscovy crossed to any mallard is a mule duck and they are not all sterile but most are, they do have testes they just dont have sperm. i have never heard of caponizing ducks so i have no idea what that would be called, i'm not to sure you can make duck capons, they have very fragile thin rib cages that would probly break in the caponizing process. I'm also not sure there is a need to capon them since most ducks are processed before sexual maturity anyhow.
Yes muscovy is very lean and pekin is very fatty two opposite's but as someone above mentioned i cant recall who atm....smoked muscovy cant be beat and i really like the lack of grease, pekin is honestly a bit rich for me. If i make it i score the skin and sear it until most of the fat is cooked off or deep fry it. Btw grilling pekin is not a overly good idea
