Mixing duck breeds

[Lwilki]

Hi folks, I’m after some advice please.

We have 3 khaki campbells (2 ducks, 1 drake) and 5 chickens. A few weeks ago we rehomed 3 Muscovy ducklings from someone who had hatched but couldn’t keep them. It was only ever meant to be temporary until we found them a forever home, but we’ve fallen in love!

Trouble is, it’s looking like we have 2 drakes and 1 duck. As they are such a big breed, we’ve not got space to get more girls to even out the numbers.

My question is, if I got a couple of girls of a smaller breed, would that be ok to keep the boys entertained so they don’t harass the one Muscovy girl? Or will they stick to their own breed?

 

[fatty and friends]

you could always divide the coop in half, one half for the boys and the other for the girls

 

[SolarDuck]

Hmmmm I think that even if you get some ducks of a different breed they will probably perfer the muscovy girl and still over mate her. If anything maybe add like 5 more muscovy girls? Or rehome one drake and add 2 or 3 more hens.

 

[Lwilki]

you could always divide the coop in half, one half for the boys and the other for the girls

They free range during the day. And there’s no way the other half would agree to his babies being caged all day!

 

[Yardmom]

Muskovies are a different subspecies than other common domestic duck breeds. The smaller hens would probably not catch the attention of the Muskovies drakes. Large drakes and small hens can also be tough for the hens when they are the same species.

 

[theycallmechickmagnet]

I actually had a jumbo pekin hen, a muscovy drake and a couple muscovy and other hens. The muscovy drake actually preferred the jumbo pekin because she was closer to his size. He was too big to mate with any of our other hens, even the muscovies

 

[nolamimi504]

Hi folks, I’m after some advice please.

We have 3 khaki campbells (2 ducks, 1 drake) and 5 chickens. A few weeks ago we rehomed 3 Muscovy ducklings from someone who had hatched but couldn’t keep them. It was only ever meant to be temporary until we found them a forever home, but we’ve fallen in love!

Trouble is, it’s looking like we have 2 drakes and 1 duck. As they are such a big breed, we’ve not got space to get more girls to even out the numbers.

My question is, if I got a couple of girls of a smaller breed, would that be ok to keep the boys entertained so they don’t harass the one Muscovy girl? Or will they stick to their own breed?

We have 4 different breeds, all found abandoned last year: Goldie (Pekin), Midnight (Cayuga, largest duck), Chocolate (Khaki Campbell) and Half-pint (Mallard). We have 3 males and 1 female currently. Goldie’s first clutch was 52 eggs, being a Pekin she’s not a brooder. We incubated 12 eggs the first time, with 6 hatching- we lost one and the other 5 were girls thankfully LOL, those were all from the Khaki Campbell and almost 3 months old. The second time we incubated 11 (trouble keeping the humidity levels high this time), only 2 hatched, from the Cayuga- 1-male and 1-female, I said no more drakes but I’m curious to see how they’re going to look when their feathers come in, 2 weeks old. Some breeds will only mate with their own breed, so I’ve heard but all 3 of my drakes have mounted or tried mounting Goldie, only to be stopped.

 

[2000096904]

To be honest if you are going to try and stop the Muscovy ducks from just melting on the one female Muscovy duck call ducks are not the right answer because they are way too small and the male muscovy will probably just not even notice them or even if he does notice them he probably will injure the call ducks on accident. So out of my experience I would recommend putting in a bigger breed like maybe some pekins or something like that. Just my tip you can have your own opinion.

 

[bhaugh]

Muscovies like to stay to themselves if there are enough of them. I've witnessed and heard stories over the years where they create their own family within a duck society. And as mentioned muscovy are not ducks per se. Allowing them to breed with ducks creates fertility issues for the ducklings if you plan to sell the babies. Buyers need to know what they are buying and accept the risk

 

[Crazy Maizie]

Muscovies like to stay to themselves if there are enough of them. I've witnessed and heard stories over the years where they create their own family within a duck society. And as mentioned muscovy are not ducks per se. Allowing them to breed with ducks creates fertility issues for the ducklings if you plan to sell the babies. Buyers need to know what they are buying and accept the risk

Muscovies are ducks. They are the only domesticated duck not descended from the mallard. Muscovies are actually pretty independent as far as ducks go. They will go off on their own and not worry about the group whereas the mallard based duck is group focused. I do agree that the offspring of mallard derived ducks and muscovies are mules and hinnies and pose issues only if planning to breed on down the line.