Flying duck!

[andreagran7]

Hi all,

I have 3 Muscovy females, on advice we clipped their wings when they came to us just over a year ago. Recently after moulting one of them has started flying. Not long distances, but she can fly in and out of the coop where I keep them overnight. They free range during the day.
Should I clip her wing again? I found it a bit traumatic the first time! Is there a chance she’ll leave her group and fly off?
Thanks for any advice.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I don’t take the chance of one of mine flying off I clip their wings after each molt. Their love for flying can get them into a lot of trouble .

 

[Jpat]

Just 1 wing each?

 

[Muscovy-palooza]

Hi all,

I have 3 Muscovy females, on advice we clipped their wings when they came to us just over a year ago. Recently after moulting one of them has started flying. Not long distances, but she can fly in and out of the coop where I keep them overnight. They free range during the day.
Should I clip her wing again? I found it a bit traumatic the first time! Is there a chance she’ll leave her group and fly off?
Thanks for any advice.

We haven't ever clipped our muscovy wings. We got our first three, 2 boys and 1 girl, Spring 2017. I'm thinking that since they have mates that they are content and I don't expect any of those 3 to fly away. Things got a little crazy when we had an increase in flock size after 2 clutches of eggs hatched in 2018. It got downright wild around here as we had too many males! Once they were interested in breeding there were ducks flying all over our place fighting. We did have 1 male disappear and we think that he may have flown off. We sold all 9 of the extra males and things were peaceful once again. We did find one female dead. She had no obvious injury which leads me to wonder if she flew into the telephone pole that she was found near. In our case, at this point we don't plan to clip their wings. If we do it would be the males only to give the girls a chance to get away since the boys are so aggressive during breeding. We may change our minds later depending on our flocks behaviour.

 

[andreagran7]

Thanks all, I think I’ll clip it to keep her safe.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I have never clipped my Muscovy drakes wings only my females.