muscovy duckling questions (Need help sexing)

[Webdragon444]

Hi, I'm Robin!

I'm still kinda new here, so please forgive me if I make any mistakes! I was told to go to this thread for any of my questions...

So, First I guess I'll introduce you to my birds. I have 7 in total, 6 chicks and 1 Muscovy duckling! They are all 4 weeks old. This is them in our run, they still spend the night in the brooder.

The first problem is that our duckling (whose name is Webbs) somehow ended up with splayed leg! The Bottom of the brooder was filled with Timothy hay, and we had covered it with paper towels for the first week and a half. I had read to do that so they wouldn't develop leg problems... If anyone knows why the duckling ended up with leg problems, please let me know? Should I have used a different bedding setup maybe?
Anyway, I made them a splint out of gauze padding, a hair elastic, and gauze tape, and I wanted to know whether I should keep using it or not? I don't want to hurt the duckling, or further damage their legs!

Another problem I have is that I need to know the duck's sex. The thing is, when we were ordering the birds, we had ordered all female chicks, and thought we were ordering a female Muscovy duckling as well, but later found out they don't sex the ducklings! We had read beforehand how to raise a duck with hens, but we had also read that if the duck is male, there's a possibility of them trying to mate with the hens, which can kill the hen!

I don't want that to happen, so we are prepared to get a few other ducks and then separate them if we really have to, but our duckling is really attached to our chicks, so I also don't want to separate them, especially if it ends up being needless, and the duck is female.

Is there a way to tell the ducks sex at this age? I will try to add some good photos of the duck here.

Anyone have a good guess as to whether this duckling is male or female?
Is the splint I made alright?

Any help and advice you can give would be very much appreciated!

 

[Pyxis]

You can't tell the gender of a muscovy this young. And you absolutely need another duckling. You should never ever ever keep one duck alone, even when there are other species of birds present. They are flock animals and must have a friend of their own species. So you need to immediately start looking for another muscovy duckling, or if you aren't able to keep a second one, then you need to rehome this duckling to someone who can keep more than one duck.

Also, splayed leg should correct within a couple days. Ducklings need different feed than chicks, or they develop leg problems because they need more niacin than chicks do, and chick feed doesn't contain enough niacin for them. Have you been feeding an all flock feed, or adding a niacin supplement to the feed?

 

[Webdragon444]

You can't tell the gender of a muscovy this young. And you absolutely need another duckling. You should never ever ever keep one duck alone, even when there are other species of birds present. They are flock animals and must have a friend of their own species. So you need to immediately start looking for another muscovy duckling, or if you aren't able to keep a second one, then you need to rehome this duckling to someone who can keep more than one duck.

Also, splayed leg should correct within a couple days. Ducklings need different feed than chicks, or they develop leg problems because they need more niacin than chicks do, and chick feed doesn't contain enough niacin for them. Have you been feeding an all flock feed, or adding a niacin supplement to the feed?

I will definitely get other ducks if I have to in order to keep my duck happy!

However, I would have to separate the ducks from the chickens, and I don't know if I can do that at this point. The duck gets really nervous when separated from the chickens, we can't even take the duck out without them. They seem perfectly happy while with the chickens!

Not only that, but when I was doing research, I found that plenty of people had raised happy ducks alongside chickens without running into too many problems. Because of this, I don't want to separate them unless I absolutely have to.

However, if the duck seems unhappy without other ducks, I will get more as soon as possible.

The happiness and safety of my birds is my top priority, and if the duck is unhappy, it is my job to fix that. However, the duck seems perfectly happy now, so unless keeping the duck with my chickens is going to pose a threat to the chickens safety, I don't want to needlessly stress them out.

As for the feed, when asking at our local feed store we were instructed to feed both the chicks and the duckling duck starter, because they said they can both eat that? We just started the duck on grower pellets, though.
Could that be the problem?

 

[Pyxis]

You absolutely can keep ducks in with chickens, I myself do. But you have to have at least two. You can get a second and keep them both in with your chickens. I wasn't meaning that you have to separate them, only that you must have at least two ducks for your duck to be happiest.

Duck starter should be fine for both species. What is the niacin content? Is the duckling still having leg issues? What happens when you take the splint off the legs?

 

[Table4Six]

I also keep ducks with chickens with absolutely no problems. But I don't keep my drakes with the chickens, only hens. Drakes, especially during mating season, their hormones can just make them do crazy things, like trying to breed chickens, which can lead to all kinds of problems.

Muscovies are one of the easier duck breeds to sex, because of the huge size difference between males and females. But you don't have any other muscovies to compare size to, however, in my opinion, your bird looks like a big drake already. Just from those pictures I can tell he looks too big to be a hen at 4 weeks.

 

[Webdragon444]

You absolutely can keep ducks in with chickens, I myself do. But you have to have at least two. You can get a second and keep them both in with your chickens. I wasn't meaning that you have to separate them, only that you must have at least two ducks for your duck to be happiest.

Duck starter should be fine for both species. What is the niacin content? Is the duckling still having leg issues? What happens when you take the splint off the legs?

Thank you for replying!
I do understand that I could keep more than one duck with chickens, but I worry that my chicken run is a bit too small for more than one duck with my hens, as I've heard Muscovies need a fair bit of space.

We own about 8 acres of land, but much of it is forested, and it's not uncommon to see wolves, bears, hawks, eagles, Falcons, and other large predators in the area we live in. Were it not for that, we would just let the chickens run loose in the field next to the house!

We have a few options, however.

The first thing we could do is let them all live in the run/coop, and go out to let them into our field while supervised. I can spare about 4-6 hours a day with my current schedule, possibly more depending on whether the rest of the family will take shifts watching them or not. This would be okay since if any of the birds got into trouble, one of us could go sort it out.

The second thing we could do is let them all loose during the day, and figure out some way to round them all up at night. They would end up being mostly unsupervised.
Now, as I had previously stated, I'm a little nervous about keeping male ducks near the hens, as if they do try to mate, they can kill the hen. Not only that, but isn't there a chance that our cat or some other predator would be able to get them? I would hate to come back from a grocery trip only to find that one of our birds were killed!

Our last option would be that we let the ducks roam free around the field, and bring them in for the night. The chicken run is at the edge of our field, so they would still see the chickens, but would be separated by the fence. This is the best option if, when we get more ducks, they all end up being male. How are Muscovies when it comes to looking after themselves? I don't want them getting eaten either!

Also, when we get other ducks, do we get them as ducklings? The only place we can get ducks where we live is our farm supply store, as far as I know. I am not entirely sure, but it might be possible to get adults from there. If we get ducklings we can put the separator in the brooder, so that they get used to both the chicks and the duckling still in there without getting hurt.

Our duck still isn't even feathered, and I wouldn't know how to introduce new adult ducks to them. Not only that, but I'm pretty sure that our duck thinks that they are a chicken, and, being raised with chickens, wouldn't they have trouble with other adult ducks? I'm worried they wouldn't get along.

As for the leg issues:

I am not sure what the niacin levels are, it didn't say anywhere on the bag. I know the brand is shur-gain, and that the chicks are still on the duck starter, while the duck has recently been started on duck grower pellets.

The duck has had this leg problem for about two weeks; the first few days we weren't sure what was wrong or how to treat it. We tried calling the vet, and although they didn't take birds in, she said it definitely sounded like splayed leg and recommended the splint for around 3 days. We took it off, but after a day or two, the legs reverted back to the way they were before, and the duck was having trouble moving around again.

I figured it was maybe the splint? The duck tends to avoid moving around a lot because of the leg problems, so maybe the legs aren't being exercised enough? I really don't know. I guess I will try leaving the splint on for a couple more days, and see how it is then?

Thank you so much for your help! If you have any suggestions on what to do about the leg, how to keep the ducks safely and happily, and how to introduce new ducks to my duckling, I would really appreciate it! I just want all of my birds to be happy!

I also keep ducks with chickens with absolutely no problems. But I don't keep my drakes with the chickens, only hens. Drakes, especially during mating season, their hormones can just make them do crazy things, like trying to breed chickens, which can lead to all kinds of problems.

Muscovies are one of the easier duck breeds to sex, because of the huge size difference between males and females. But you don't have any other muscovies to compare size to, however, in my opinion, your bird looks like a big drake already. Just from those pictures I can tell he looks too big to be a hen at 4 weeks.

Thanks! I will definitely get a few more ducks, then!
Edit: I'll try taking a photo of the duck next to the chicks and my hand, for a better size comparison, if that helps! I know I'm not the best at taking photos...