Are your muscovy hens aggressive towards them? I have to constantly check the door to my 4 because they, especially A$$hole, have absolutely attacked chicks and young started birds that slip in the pen. My drake is just fine though
Chat room for non religious poultry keepers! :D
- Thread starter Meri Maura
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RebelFord81
Crowing
No I'm a horde all the Orpington type 
but I want to get ducks next spring. My husband is putting in a pond and him and my one daughter are allergic to chicken eggs so it's win win cause I just think ducks are the cutest
but I want to get ducks next spring. My husband is putting in a pond and him and my one daughter are allergic to chicken eggs so it's win win cause I just think ducks are the cutest
Overall, I've found the Muscovy to be darlings. My females are only aggressive towards other birds when they have babies. I usually don't let young chicks around any adult birds until they're much older though, if I'm raising them myself.
Only one of my birds that I found have any serious aggression towards others was a young drake who grabbed one of my month-old chicks and ran off with it. My daughter's dog killed him a few weeks ago.
The chick was not harmed.
Hmm. A$$hole might be influencing the other 3. My Jumbo Pekin in the pen with them doesn't do any issues
No I'm a horde all the Orpington type
You're in luck, there are Buff Orpington ducks!!!
Research the breeds so far as eggs go, though. Muscovy are the friendliest, imo, but they don't lay many eggs in a season. And like I said, I'm not crazy about the looks or personality of the Khaki Campbells. Magpie are friendlier and lay a fair deal.
Just remember female Domestic ducks are @#!$% LOUD!!!
Another thing in the Muscovy's favour.
GUYS.
Lemon. Pyle. Brahmas.
Lemon. Pyle. Brahmas.
Personally I prefer the porcelain variety.but they're so nice, both of them
I'm so sorry, Pipd. Sudden death is one of the most heartbreaking ways to lose an animal, it gives you no peace of mind
Truly. It especially hurt because of her youth, she was a 2022 baby. And she had not been quite right since she started her molt, but she was eating and drinking normally and seemed perky enough, so I didn't really even have a reason to act before suddenly she was gone.
But, I don't want to get into that here.Trying to decide who stays for breeding next year, and who goes to Freezer Camp, so far as my Domestic ducks goes. It's going to be a heck of a lot more difficult with the Muscovy, since I have so many!
I currently have five drakes, and only four ducks. Logic would be to only keep one drake. but what if he doesn't make it through winter?? Also, if I were to keep just one, it would be my daughter's purebred Magpie. Which itself is another problem as one of the ducks is also hers, and also a Magpie.
Another of the drakes is a Magpie/Cayuga mix, but he was raised with Muscovy and prefers them for mating with!He is also kinda sorta my daughter's. BUT, apart from the Magpie duck, he's not related to any of the other ducks.
The three other drakes are mine. I hatched them. One is white, which is not a 'colour' I'm crazy about, but may be the son of the black pied Pekin mix drake I had that disappeared. No idea who the mother is. I don't know how big he'll be, but he's a good size. And I kinda like him, personality wise. But I don't want a flock of white ducks!
The other two drakes were most probably fathered by the blue Peking mix I had and that has since been consumed. Because he was a drakehole. He chased anything with feathers, be it Domestics, Muscovy, or even chickens. Thus, he didn't even make it to Freezer Camp, just straight to the roaster. What can I say, I was craving duck. One of these boys is definitely crossed with the Khaki Campbell which disappeared (I had a lot of losses in the Spring, most of them my females!!!), and the other probably a cross with my Rouen, who, you guessed it, *also* disappeared.The KC cross is smaller, but prettier, imo. Probably would give good egg-laying genes at the cost of size. Did I mention I really like duck? The Rouen cross is big, and his colours are okay? He looks like a blue Mallard, but I don't like the Mallard look. Pros would be bigger offspring, but probably less eggs. I also like duck eggs, they are tasty and don't mess with my digestion the way chicken eggs do.
They are very bonded. For now anyhow. Who knows if this will carry through to the Spring when breeding season kicks in.
I only have two new females, one which was for sure fathered by the aforementioned blue drake, the other one I'm uncertain of. Her markings are very interesting. And an older duck who is probably a Buff.
I'll attach of picture of them, too. They are the two in the back right.
I'm tempted to keep both the blue drakes over the winter, but that means feeding them. And I'm not working so my funds are limited.
Anyhow, sorry for the rant. I know ultimately it's up to me.
If you're planning on breeding them and hatching in the spring, then keeping a back up male is always wise.
As far as the white mix drake, I believe white is always recessive in ducks, which means that that drake would either have to have two white parents, a parent carrying the white gene (as a first generation Pekin mix would) and a white parent, or two parents carrying the white gene. I'm not sure how common it is for pure breeds of ducks to carry white, but it happens sometimes in chickens; that's how we ended up with White Legbars, for example, despite that the imported population was entirely Creams. Anyway, that would also mean that if you kept the white drake, as long as none of the hens he's with are white as well, his offspring won't all be white. They'd all carry the recessive white gene, however, and it likely would pop up sometimes in later generations.
If ducks are anything like chickens, then you can't really achieve the best of both worlds as far as egg laying and meat goes. Egg laying comes at the cost of size, and meatiness comes at the cost of egg production. Even so-called dual purpose breeds, in chickens at least, generally are just okay for egg laying and not very meaty compared to dedicated meat varieties. Both purposes take too much out of a bird in order for them to be able to accomplish both well. So unfortunately you'll have to choose whether meat or eggs is more important, or select for something in the middle that gives a decent amount of both.
Ultimately, yes, it's up to you and what you want from your flock. Good luck narrowing it down! I'm kind of in the same boat because I have somewhere in the vicinity of 50 Cochin bantams that I need to narrow down to something more like 15 for the winter.
No I'm a horde all the Orpington type
You're in luck, there are Buff Orpington ducks!!!
Haha, I had the same thought!
I'll defer to Canadian Wind on ducks, I'm not super well-versed in them in general.Beautiful birds! I'm partial to Blue Light and Blue Dark / Blue Partridge, myself.
Hi
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