Muscovy keepers share your pics!

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I hope you can get a few to hatch some ducklings.. Here my drakes don't even start mating the females till 8-9 months old so maybe they just take longer to mature and be fertile. My females don't even start laying till 8-9 months old. I can't imagine why your drake at his young age wouldn't be fertile as the dickens.

I don't know either. It seems weird. He seems to spend more time interfering in chicken business than mating the hens. I wonder without competition a male muscovy gets lazy? My last male wouldn't mate hens his last year or two of life after I lost the other drake. He was old though. The hens would chase him around instead of him doing the chasing.

 

[casportpony]

I'm not totally positive what I'm looking for. Something to do with a bullseye, but I never needed to pay attention to exactly what. I was gonna go pull the eggs to candle here in a bit. If they aren't fertile I want to get rid of them sooner rather than later, but would be interested in checking for fertility. Is that something I need to do on fresh eggs or these that have been under the duck for a while? Thanks for your help.

You can do it on the one in the incubator. When I do it I let them rest in one postion so the blastoderm or blastodisc rotates to the top of the egg, then I crack it open and look for a bullseye.

 

[casportpony]

@oldhenlikesdogs, I'll try to get some pictures of how I crack them and what I look for.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

You can do it on the one in the incubator. When I do it I let them rest in one postion so the blastoderm or blastodisc rotates to the top of the egg, then I crack it open and look for a bullseye.

Thanks, the incubator is a muscovy hen.

 

[casportpony]

Thanks, the incubator is a muscovy hen.

Sorry, my bad, I knew that.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

So I pulled all the eggs out from my muscovy hen, at day 10 I see nothing but yolk, so they are no good? Just double checking before I chuck them. To check for fertility there should be an extra ring around the blastoderm?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Never mind. I broke them open and not a single bullseye. Hmmm. Did not expect this. New question, how do muscovy eggs handle shipping? Otherwise I will have to find a new drake at some point. Very disappointing. I think I've seen my drake fake mate too. I guess I will let my hens continue to try, but I'm not too hopeful.

 

[casportpony]

Never mind. I broke them open and not a single bullseye. Hmmm. Did not expect this. New question, how do muscovy eggs handle shipping? Otherwise I will have to find a new drake at some point. Very disappointing. I think I've seen my drake fake mate too. I guess I will let my hens continue to try, but I'm not too hopeful.

That's a bummer. . I don't know how well they handle shipping. Maybe @learycow knows?

 

[learycow]

In my experience they are tougher to incubate than other duck breed. But shipping wouldn't make them less fertile than when they were laid (shipping can affect how they develop though)

 

[casportpony]

Pictures from today

Spoiler: Eight Pictures - click to view