I was just wondering if Mule/Meat ducks sell well in your area? I REALLY wanna get a couple non-Muscovy girls, I miss my old ducks But if I can't rehome or sell the babies I dont think I should.
In our area, they sold very well last year. It was my first season with them and really hadn't gotten the Muscovies with the idea of breeding them, just was in desperate need of natural fly control! We have our own horses and a horse rescue nearby that has a huge number of horses. We used to use fly predators that worked wonderfully until the rescue came in. I cannot afford to take care of their problem and it was becoming impossible as well as unbearable!! So started the Scovy project in December of '08 and the chicken project in Spring of '09. Had to put my rare waterfowl project on hold indefinitely, but I am having a BLAST with these guys!! TG for BYC!!! My mule ducks were a complete accident and hadn't even thought about my Ancona breeding with my Scovy drake until she pulled off a clutch of 7!! They were a little more flighty like she is and she would FLIP when they perched Poor thing because they really stressed her out. I am hoping to use her this year to hatch purebred Scovies when she goes broody and use her eggs for baking, but we will see what happens. I miss having duck eggs in the fridge, but I now find myself with a waiting list for hatching eggs and ducklings. I also had someone contact me about supplying his extended family with 14 weeks old ducklings for their freezers. I didn't have enough to meet his demands and raising ducks for food is not something I had ever done before since they had been pets only since I was a kid. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around that, but may find myself in a situation where it will become a possibility. I did sell 4 of the drakes at a local flea market for meat and fought the urge to run after them and buy them back!! Hung tough because no one thought that I would follow through and I couldn't justify having those huge boys at home, harassing my few females, and basically causing chaos. I am working on the ability to become more self-sufficient and what else do you do with your culls since there are only so many pet homes? I DID find the prettiest drake a wonderful pet home. He is decorating someone's pond with a trio of Toulouse geese and they are waiting for more this year. What other breed were you looking at getting?
I had to rehome all of my non-muscovy ducks last year because the owl & hawks REALLY liked them. I patched up way too many ducks for my liking. I spoke with the lady that bought them today and she's going to give me a dozen eggs for free. here they are in the empty pen awaiting their new owner...
