How to sex muscovy ducks through all stages of life

[The Ranch Girl]

So I learned how to sex my muscovy's while raising them. i had little experience with vent sexing and the numbers became different every time. I read about it being hard to sex them but I found some easy ways to to it. Sadly you cant really sex them from the begining unless your good at vent sexing, but I will go through all the stages of life.

4 weeks old:

So at four weeks I think the most apparent signs move in. 1 sign will be the feet, a male ducks feet will be bigger than the females, and the male ducks will be much bigger, growing faster that the females. You might also notice the males will be lazier than the females.

6 weeks old:

at six weeks the carnucles might start to form, male carnucles will be first to start growing and will be darker red that the females. At this point you may be able to really start noticing difference in size. I have read that female muscovies tend to be more vocal than males but I never noticed this.

10 weeks old:

At this point you may be able to notice the different tail sizes. the female tail may be more V shaped while the males could be more U shaped. however a female can fan her tail out when broody or distressed.

12 weeks old:

At this point all the information above is way more obvious.

I hope this helped any new owners, sorry I dont have any pictures and moderates correct me if anyone of this could be false. I just went off of what I saw.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I look for the body shape as they mature. The males are longer of body. Also they feather slower, so early wing development often means females. The males tend to lay down more as they are heavier in general. The more you have the easier it is to tell them apart.

 

[AmyA248]

So I learned how to sex my muscovy's while raising them. i had little experience with vent sexing and the numbers became different every time. I read about it being hard to sex them but I found some easy ways to to it. Sadly you cant really sex them from the begining unless your good at vent sexing, but I will go through all the stages of life.

4 weeks old:

So at four weeks I think the most apparent signs move in. 1 sign will be the feet, a male ducks feet will be bigger than the females, and the male ducks will be much bigger, growing faster that the females. You might also notice the males will be lazier than the females.

6 weeks old:

at six weeks the carnucles might start to form, male carnucles will be first to start growing and will be darker red that the females. At this point you may be able to really start noticing difference in size. I have read that female muscovies tend to be more vocal than males but I never noticed this.

10 weeks old:

At this point you may be able to notice the different tail sizes. the female tail may be more V shaped while the males could be more U shaped. however a female can fan her tail out when broody or distressed.

12 weeks old:

At this point all the information above is way more obvious.

I hope this helped any new owners, sorry I dont have any pictures and moderates correct me if anyone of this could be false. I just went off of what I saw.

Omg! Thank you so much for posting this!
I’m REALLY struggling with figuring out who’s male and who’s female.
I’m trying vent sexing, but maybe they are too young.
My oldest is a little over a month and my youngest is 3 days.
We have 5, all different ages due to my female laying an egg or 2 a day for over 2 months.
I saved as many as I could but she didn’t go broody and it was very cold outside.
Currently we have 2 drakes, and 1 hen, our other hen was killed by a hawk and it’s very dangerous to only have one female and 2 males.
We have 2 Pekin rescues that we were females, but I don’t trust it.
The Pekins are 2 months old and we are nervous about adding them to the Muscovy’s, as we are afraid they could get hurt.
I just wish there was an easy way because we desperately need a few more females.
And our ducks are our babies and we don’t want to re-home them because they are male…

Have a good day!
Amy

 

[The Ranch Girl]

Omg! Thank you so much for posting this!
I’m REALLY struggling with figuring out who’s male and who’s female.
I’m trying vent sexing, but maybe they are too young.
My oldest is a little over a month and my youngest is 3 days.
We have 5, all different ages due to my female laying an egg or 2 a day for over 2 months.
I saved as many as I could but she didn’t go broody and it was very cold outside.
Currently we have 2 drakes, and 1 hen, our other hen was killed by a hawk and it’s very dangerous to only have one female and 2 males.
We have 2 Pekin rescues that we were females, but I don’t trust it.
The Pekins are 2 months old and we are nervous about adding them to the Muscovy’s, as we are afraid they could get hurt.
I just wish there was an easy way because we desperately need a few more females.
And our ducks are our babies and we don’t want to re-home them because they are male…

Have a good day!
Amy

Your welcome! usually you notice as they get older the bigger they are then they are usually male but did you have their wings clipped as babies? they tend to be fatter if you do that.
Glad this helped you!
Sawyer