Difference between female and male muscovies.

[DuckyGaze]

I really want to know the difference between male and female without sexing. I am not confident enough to watch a youtube on sexing ducks, to actually go out and do it.

Here is what I want to show you.

One has black on the top of its head .. the other doesn't. They are about 5 weeks old now. A lady brought them to me after she had purchased them so both have their poor beaks clipped.

But they are doing so well! Always beautifully pure white! They are really lovely and I want to keep them. Will they survive well with other muscovies later on? Or should they be set apart always. I am scared the big male will beat on them and hurt them. They are in their own pen at night. The big male in a pen alone and the female alone with her babies.

 

[Amiga]

@Miss Lydia

@Scovy Momma


There is a Muscovy thread, too, I am way too tired to remember who has Muscovies. My apologies.

 

[Ren2014]

They look to be girls. Can you post another picture from the side showing their full body lengths?

 

[DuckyGaze]

Here is a pic of each of them.



That is the first one.



And this is the other one. Always so beautiful and clean. Lovely muscovies. It is my first year with muscovies and I have fallen in love with them.

Only thing I do not like is the fact that these poor babies had their beaks clipped. When the lady brought them to me I was shocked to see this.

 

[Orca5094]

What is this "beak clipping" thing?? Do people do that? Why??

Also, are they exactly the same size? Males will be much larger. Right now they do look like females, but it's still pretty early to know for sure. The males will start to get more of the red caruncles on their faces as they get older.

 

[DuckyGaze]

Yes they are pretty much the exact same size.

The beak clipping is horrible! These 2 muscovies were ordered from the Co-op store to be fattened up. The lady who purchased them brought them to me after only 2 days so they were actually only 3 days old.
They were tiny little things with clipped beaks. I was really shocked. Poor darlings. Why clip the beaks of babies? They are not aggressive at all. So I am thinking that it is to prevent future damage to birds that are being raised for meat or maybe the Co-op just does not want people buying muscovies and then breeding them.

These two are doing really well as you can see even with clipped beaks. If they are both females, will it be cruel for me to keep them and let them live out their lives with the others? I mean, will they be helpless without their beaks for defense? Being females they will not fight with other females. I always have feed on hand for them since they do not seem to be able to dig in the ground and forage much. Poor darlings, I just cannot even begin to imagine having to butcher them.

 

[quackingdom]

Poor things. I know why chickens are debeaked, but since ducks have more blunt beaks (or bills), I’m not sure whether the same reason applies. For chickens, it’s to prevent cannibalism. Commercial chickens in the stressful, cramped conditions often become overly stressed and start pecking at each other, which leads to cannibalism. It’s horrible management by people who consider their birds egg machines that leads to this cruel practice.

I can’t tell the sex for sure. It’s much easier when you have more ducks of both sexes to compare with. Also, in addition to size and caruncle differences, eventually, male Muscovies will have a distinct hiss will females make a trilling, peeping noise which actually sounds kind of musical and is fairly quiet. But their voices won’t change until 3-4 months old. At this age, I usually go by the growth of the feathers, especially wings, and since their wings look the same, I think they’re both the same sex. (Females’ feathers grow faster than males’. We just clipped our females’ wings last week and were planning to clip the males’ too, only we realized that they weren’t grown enough.)

As to how they will get along with the rest of the flock, I don’t know for sure, but I would try putting them together. If any major attacks result, I would separate them again. They are more likely to be attacked by other females than the males. In my experience, males just fight other males and females just fight other females. It’s usually just a pecking order fight, and since these ducks don’t have complete use of their bills, I think they will end up on the bottom of the pecking order. But I don’t think that’s necessarily bad, because you’ll always have a duck at the bottom no matter what, and newcomers are likely to end up there anyway, tough bills or not. I would keep a close eye on them anyway to make sure they’re getting enough food.

But they’re a little young – both males and females can harass young ducks. Basically, I would wait a little longer before trying to add them to the flock.

Sorry if this was a long post with unnecessary information, but I hope it answers your question.

 

[robinjs11]

The bottom one looks like a female and if the other has the same size feet, its also a female

 

[Ren2014]

I'm still guessing females. How is their stance? Wide apart = drake, narrow stance = hen.

 

[Orca5094]

Poor things. I know why chickens are debeaked, but since ducks have more blunt beaks (or bills), I’m not sure whether the same reason applies. For chickens, it’s to prevent cannibalism. Commercial chickens in the stressful, cramped conditions often become overly stressed and start pecking at each other, which leads to cannibalism. It’s horrible management by people who consider their birds egg machines that leads to this cruel practice.

Wow, I had no idea this kind of thing was done to birds. That is just horrible!