Muscovy keepers share your pics!

[Miss Lydia]

Some of mine

Muscovy convention lol mine do this in the morning when they all get let out it's like old home week.

 

[Going Quackers]

My babies are a week old and one day today and one is 6days today

so sweet! i miss the wee days.

 

[Going Quackers]

Some of mine

sounds like my place but you need to add a couple of fights, my females have been crazy this year! ...

 

[kountryboy4life]

Very talkative bunch ! and beautiful to boot

 

[D'Angelo N Va.]

Sorry, I am just responding to livinginbrazil, yes two females had 20 plus each time, one never had more than 14. This was done 3 times , i sold lots and yes some went into the freezer, but I had over 100 by winter time.

 

[insanity]

Ok I've had seven muscovies for about six months. I'm at the end of my patience with them. I love their personality and they are lots of fun but the mess. I don't think I can take it long term. They have plenty of room, a pool, and everything else they could want. But they are so very messy. I do a full cleaning on the coup weekly. Any tips on how to deal with that? I want to keep them but not at this level. Any tricks/ideas on how to improve the situation?

 

[muscovy man14]

For a easy clean with the kiddie pools u get a PVC pipe through the bottom into the ground as deep as needed a put a plug in the pipe when not cleaning that way u don't have to dump the pool to clean it and u could put ALOT of sand around the pools too

 

[Miss Lydia]

Ok I've had seven muscovies for about six months. I'm at the end of my patience with them. I love their personality and they are lots of fun but the mess. I don't think I can take it long term. They have plenty of room, a pool, and everything else they could want. But they are so very messy. I do a full cleaning on the coup weekly. Any tips on how to deal with that? I want to keep them but not at this level. Any tricks/ideas on how to improve the situation?

Yep ducks are messy, explain in detail how you have them set up, their house what you use for litter and how big of an area they have outside, do you free range or keep them penned, all of this will help and pics would help too. I have 15 and my daily cleanup is pretty easy. mine free range over 1/2 acre fenced in property.

 

[insanity]

Yep ducks are messy, explain in detail how you have them set up, their house what you use for litter and how big of an area they have outside, do you free range or keep them penned, all of this will help and pics would help too. I have 15 and my daily cleanup is pretty easy. mine free range over 1/2 acre fenced in property.

As it is winter I have them in a dog kennel that was on the property. The building is 8x10 and all open floor space with straw bedding (wood shavings were a disaster), I have several bales of straw for perching on and a large wire rabbit cage with the door removed in one corner the hens like to sleep in. I tried regular roosts but they wouldn't use them. Attached to the coop is 10x10 cement pad,chain link dog run with 3/4 wood awning. I wrapped tarps to the fencing for solid walls to give protection from the wind. In the run I have a 2ftx4ft horse trough for a pond, straw bedding and 2 straw bale perches.
In the summer they have this same setup with the gate open for free range in a 1/3-1/2 acre pen withe a 6x10 pond on one end and a kiddy pool on the other. Summer wasn't as bad, I was able to keep up with about half an hour a day but now a whole day goes to cleaning on top of regular care. "Winter" is a full half the year here if not more. They only get the free range area about 4- 5 months a year.

 

[Miss Lydia]

As it is winter I have them in a dog kennel that was on the property. The building is 8x10 and all open floor space with straw bedding (wood shavings were a disaster), I have several bales of straw for perching on and a large wire rabbit cage with the door removed in one corner the hens like to sleep in. I tried regular roosts but they wouldn't use them. Attached to the coop is 10x10 cement pad,chain link dog run with 3/4 wood awning. I wrapped tarps to the fencing for solid walls to give protection from the wind. In the run I have a 2ftx4ft horse trough for a pond, straw bedding and 2 straw bale perches.
In the summer they have this same setup with the gate open for free range in a 1/3-1/2 acre pen withe a 6x10 pond on one end and a kiddy pool on the other. Summer wasn't as bad, I was able to keep up with about half an hour a day but now a whole day goes to cleaning on top of regular care. "Winter" is a full half the year here if not more. They only get the free range area about 4- 5 months a year.

I know being in a much colder probably snowy area than me can make a difference in what is the best way to keep our ducks, It' has been extremely cold and wet here this winter so it has been more of a challenge to keep the houses cleaned much worse the outside areas because of everything being frozen. Inside I use nothing but the flake wood shaving and peat moss mixed together, the ducks stalls have at the most about 6-8" of shaving in them, it does go down as I clean then I add more about every 2 weeks, But I go every day and use a flat end shovel scoop out the wet poop shaving put into a small trash can then I take the pitch fork and turn the bedding over a couple times to mix it all up real good, None of my coops or houses have the windows completely shut even in very frigid temps the tops stay open to keep some air circulating. so doing this way by after noon the shaving is dry and ready for the evening. Outside is the most challenging and I had to leave the disgusting poop alot this year because of the minus temps and if i even tried to wash anything off it was ice and made walking dangerous for me and the flock, but they didn't get swim water on any day it was below 40 this winter. I would give them 2 gallon buckets of water in the evening when i was cleaning up as best I could but for the most part no bathing water just their heated buckets for drinking and eating their fermented feed. mine don't roost, they may have it I had started them out as younsters but I didn't so they all sleep on the floor on the shavings. I don't think I could wait a week before cleaning I find it's much easier to do what Amiga calls room service daily then I don't get over whelmed, but I have the luxury of not having to work away from home which means i can do this where ever I want. I think alot of us have been over whelmed more this year trying to keep everything going because of the drastic temps. Ducks are messy and it's just a fact that keeping up with it can be hard and frustrating but it's all in what you want, maybe you need to think about finding home for some of them so your flock is smaller. Hopefully others will give you an idea on what they do to keep it as easy as possible.