Muscovy keepers share your pics!

[casportpony]

What about call ducks? I have some females that can be VERY ear piercing when they want their breakfast!

Call ducks = quacking ducks to me, buy yes, they are possible louder than regular quackers.

-Kathy

 

[Buck Oakes]

Well I won best breed variety, and best breed but a welsh harlequin won best junior water fowl :/

 

[casportpony]

Well I won best breed variety, and best breed but a welsh harlequin won best junior water fowl

Congrats, that's great!

-Kathy

 

[Miss Lydia]

Well I won best breed variety, and best breed but a welsh harlequin won best junior water fowl

Awesome Buck Congratulations..............is this your first show?

 

[Miss Lydia]

At around 6 weeks or so, females usually:
Get their flight feathers in earlier.
Have smaller feet, closer together,
finer legs,
Walk with less of a waddle than the males,
are rounder when viewed from the side,
Don´t have such a huge tail-end.
And, of course, normally are smaller.

Males usually:
Have little bald ends of their wings,
walk like they´ve pooped their pants,
great big feet and wider apart, also thicker legs,
are longer when viewed from the side, with more tail-end behind their legs
They´re also normally more confident, and, of course, are a lot larger at this age.

[walk like they´ve pooped their pants], I've never thought of it quite that way but it's true. lol

 

[Buck Oakes]

Awesome Buck Congratulations..............is this your first show? 

Yeppers

 

[Miss Lydia]

Yeppers

Well I'd say you have done great for first show you should be very proud of your girls and what you have accomplished with them.

 

[Buck Oakes]

Oh I am they did very well and didn't have a freak attack but they are stressed so :/

 

[Double Kindness]

We made the muscovies a hutch out of a Rubbermaid tote but they won't go in it

This is my set up, is the ramp too high up for the ducks to go into? After my dp meaties are gone, I would like the trio to use the coop for their safety and comfort. Right now there are 2 enclosed runs with a big tall gate that I open the coop in the morning and the dp meaties rush out the drawbridge and I shoo them into the attached run area so the ducks don't get picked on. The coop is supported and overhangs on both sides offering predator protection and shade, the area where the ducks are at is actually concrete covered in dirt and fresh straw as it rained really hard and I almost slipped and fell in the mud yesterday. I use a cheap big stock pot from a set my bf bought at harbor freight that are useless for cooking with for their water dish, stumps for them to chill out on, and a huge Rubbermaid tote that I didn't take a picture of yet that they refuse to go into.

They also refuse to eat the 18% protein layer feed, they only want the 26% protein gamebird feed, I have been giving them watermelon and lots of veggie scraps which they seem to enjoy with enthusiasm to lower the % protein they get.

The people I got them from said they hatched August 8.

 

[MuscovyLover]

Muscovies are fantastic mums generally, just with the odd exception.  I had 13 hatch out of 14 eggs recently because I was trying to see if the duck would produce a particular colour, but normally I have to limit them because it´s not so easy to sell them.  They breed like crazy!  

My girls are still new to it all. They only turned 1 last month.
Shazzy was making nests before she was even laying lol and is a brilliant mumma. This is her third clutch.
Sammy (girl I've just given eggs too) has only hatched 1 clutch and it was disastrous! She fiercely protected her eggs and brooded like a model duck but when they hatched she threw thdm out of the bed so she could protect her "eggs" (the shells) from them. She was quite distressed so I put them in the brooder and two days later had to fight her for the pancake thin shells she was still brooding on.
Our third girl, Quacky is not maternal at all. She is bossy, mean, and really rough with her eggs. Spends half the day off them, sometimes the night too. She's lucky she's pretty because she's a witch lol. Nearly all of her only clutch she brooded had ruptured air sacs and didn't makr it to hatch. The one that did she killed.
Ahh the joys of having ducks with such big personalities