muscovy... OMG it hurts

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

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No.

 

[rainplace]

interesting. I guess I thought I was just getting another duck. the claws were a big shock though I had read about them before. I just didn't get it. I'm torn now about using the female as just an incubator for my runners. I don't like the idea of any living thing experiencing grief. On the other hand I also know that when I sell of the runners the rest of the flock will get upset. I guess that is a sort of grief also. It feels odd deciding which sort of grief I find acceptable. It's feels even odder when I realize that what I find acceptable has a lot to do with convenience.

That's something for me to figure out during the winter.

On another note the drake looks good enough to eat

I would imagine though that 3 years old is too old for eating?

Thank you all for your knowledge, advice and hugs! You all are awesome.

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

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My female muscovies are very cliquish and hierarchial. I once put four females and one male in a 8' x 16' coop and all hell broke loose. The losers refused being herded into the coop after that.

My females like to grab chunks of feathers off the backs or tails of their adversaries.

 

[rainplace]

Quote:
My female muscovies are very cliquish and hierarchial. I once put four females and one male in a 8' x 16' coop and all hell broke loose. The losers refused being herded into the coop after that.

My females like to grab chunks of feathers off the backs or tails of their adversaries.

My duck house is 8'x12'

 

[keeperofthehearth]

On another note the drake looks good enough to eat I would imagine though that 3 years old is too old for eating?

Not according to a Asian lady I sold 18 Muscovy ducks to. She wouldn't take anything younger than 5mo. and would have liked them to be 6mo. or older. She said that they like their ducks older and 1 - 3yr would have been fine and preferred. You would probably need to take some extra time tenderizing the duck over a few days in the frig.

 

[rainplace]

Well everyone survived the night just fine. I put up a small wall so they would have some place to run to if things got bad, and they were behind it this morning. They sure are funny looking. I think when the drake punctured my hand he got into a muscle because I'm having a hard time moving the outer part without a lot of pain (pinky, ring finger, and the hand part under them). The wound looks clean and there's not much redness, so that's what I'm guessing. I still don't know what I want to do with him. I'll think it over for the next week and see if I warm up to him. He sort of puts me over my drake limit so I'll take that into consideration too.

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

Quote:
Not according to a Asian lady I sold 18 Muscovy ducks to. She wouldn't take anything younger than 5mo. and would have liked them to be 6mo. or older. She said that they like their ducks older and 1 - 3yr would have been fine and preferred. You would probably need to take some extra time tenderizing the duck over a few days in the frig.

She must be used to buying the retired egg layers, because there is no way you can make a profit on ducks that old. In Minnesota the Hmong are buying twelve week old muscovies as per this article:

http://www.cias.wisc.edu/curriculum/modIII/secb/Muscovy_Duck.pdf

My wife prefers her duck still in the shell. It's called balut, and yes she is a filipina.

 

[rainplace]

I was just talking to hubby and am thinking we may actually eat him. If I've never eaten duck before would this be a bad choice for a first duck?

 

[lauralou]

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It's not like regular duck at all. Not greasy. More like venison tenderloin. Very yummy.

 

[L0rraine]

So I'm fascinated by this thread. I had become intrigued by all the lovely Muscovies I had seen here over the past few months and wondered if I was missing out. Maybe not.

Re: using the Muscovy female to incubate your Runner eggs - is this because they can sit on a larger clutch, or were you worried about your Runner ducks not going broody? Last season both my Runner mix and Saxony Runner went broody when their eggs reached about a dozen in the nest. I only let my Saxony sit for about ten days tho' because when I candled the eggs, it appeared they weren't fertile (I'm thinking my Saxony Runner drake might be shooting blanks). So I tossed them and she readily gave up on the nest and joined the rest of the flock (unlike those darn broody chickens who will sit on an empty nest for months

).

I lived in a apartment on a lake (many years ago) where there was a lone Muscovy duck and she always looked sort of sad, but maybe that's because the other ducks (all 'wild' species) were all paired up. When everyone hatched babies in the Spring, she kept trying to sneak in and steal a few ducklings for herself, but she never did succeed. Of course that made the other wild ducks avoid her even more. (We were all so sad for her.) I'm guessing the domestic ducks won't be so judgmental though.