Convince me to get some Muscovy? :)

[Skink]

OK, so I admit I'm already kind of convinced. These would be my first ducks. I think they are beautiful, and I like the noises they make (and the lack of volume) along with their body language. I do not raise for meat and I'm allergic to eggs, so they would be kept purely for pleasure. I just had some concerns about how to get them, availability, etc. as I've not done this whole duck thing before. Perhaps someone here could fill some gaps for me?

• Are excess males easy to rehome? I want to think they would be, considering they are sizeable meat birds and not loud like roosters, but I want to know for sure first. I'd only want to keep one drake, and since I'd be hatching, I'd certainly have more than one.

• At what age do males become sexually active and start posing a risk to other poultry? The muscovy would be sharing housing with a group of chicken hens the same age as them, possibly for the entire first year. I've researched this and decided the one special consideration I'd be worried in my situation about would be male aggression to my hens. If sexual maturity would come too early to make this a reasonable arrangement, I'd just wait on having a drake until next spring when I've got a duck only pen.

• My favorite variety is the chocolate pied. Is this a relatively available variety, or likely out of reach? Where can I get some hatching eggs, if you happen to know? If not I will probably just go for black pied. If anyone has any breeder recommendations, I would be delighted to hear them, as I'd prefer to start with beautiful stock in case I should decide to breed.

 

[Amiga]

Welcome to the threshold of Duckdom!

I am not a Muscovy person but I can tell you that drakes have tried to mate with chickens and it can be deadly to the chickens.

 

[Alaskan]

Muscovy are usually pretty easy to find, there should be plenty in Texas... the easiest way might be your local Craig's list.

Chocolate are more rare, but not impossible.

I thought that it would be easy to sell Muscovy for meat... but most people want the bird already butchered and dressed.

If I am doing that much work, I want to eat it myself.


I think that the best way to make sure that the Muscovy do not bother the chickens, is make sure that they know that they are ducks (do not raise the ducklings with chicks)


I love my Muscovy, they are wonderful pets.

 

[Kaessa]

Country Hatchery is in Oklahoma, and they sell chocolate muscovies, I'm not sure if they have chocolate pied, though.