Muscovies... BAD TIME Butchering.

[KNAndrs]

So I was given a brace of ducks with some 6month old roos and decided to do them all in last night...

BAD IDEA... Muscovies don't die easily. I sliced through both neck arteries, drained them for 3 mins and then let them go... They slowly walked to my neighbors yard and sat there staring at me... for a long time. So I tried multiple ways to off them at that point but nothing was effective and I didn't want to get scratched up. An hour later the 4 of them were waiting for me to clean them up. I thought no problem, skin em and gut em and move on. They don't skin... So now it is 12:30am 2 hrs from when I started and not a single bird is in the freezer. I am ashamed of what I did next, I saw how little the breasts were and how little meat there was and I fed them to the wolves. I got so frustrated with the whole process I gave up and moved onto my roos. An hour later and all 5 roos were cleaned up and in the freezer.

Is there anyway better to do it? If not I will not take muscovies again. What did I do wrong?

KEN

 

[Raiquee]

Ken

Hi! Seen ya on the WI thread.

We haven't had a problem to doing our scovies....What we do is slice em, let em drain. They died. I wondered if you didn't go deep enough? Not sure there...

We breat out and thigh out our scovies. It's suuuch a hassle to pluck those duck feathers, and the carcass is rather lean, and the wings are USELESS. So, we breasted out our scovies. Plucked the breast, cut out the breasts. DH was careful, he didn't even need to gut them. Same with the thighs. Cut em at the knee joints, pluck, cut off at body and finish plucking to make it easy.

Altho I am really interested in the method they use in the fields with people duck hunt. The stepping on the wings and pulling up with the legs. Leaves you with a skinned duck breast on the rib. They also have a trailer hitch type gadget that does the same thing with bigger birds like geese.

Ducks are good, but man are they a lot of work. When we move and butcher off the ducks we have left, I doubt I will get more. If I really miss it, I will buy some from a hatchery, raise em up and get em out. Once a year only. They are so messy, my chick coops a mess due to them.

Muscovies are known for having the best meat for ducks, like steak. We had some duck breasts and they were so good. Just did them up on the grill and ever so tender. I would say their breasts were the size of my hand. Not as big as some godzilla chicks, but still good.