On Thanksgiving I roasted a 9lb Muscovy drake (my average dressed weight). There was about 3 T of drippings in the pan when he was done... not much at all since they're 98% fat free. Then I carved off the remainder of the meat and put the carcass into a pot of water to make stock. 12 hours later I pulled the remaining bits of meat (about a 1-1/2 cups) off the bones and weighed them. The bones, skin, and cartilage on a 9lbs Muscovy were 14 oz! Less than 1 lb of bone and almost no water/fat loss in the roasting. That means when you cook a 9 lb Muscovy you get 8 lbs of meat... amazing! As a comparison, one of my 5lb chickens has 1-1/2 lbs of bone, etc. and, while I haven't done a weight check yet, one of my 3lb Cayugas has the typical duck meat ratio that feeds only about 2 people.
And don't forget to throw the neck into your stockpot. Once reduced I peeled off the thin layer of skin from the neck and proceeded to pull off more meat from that one neck than I can get in a typical chicken thigh. Most of the pieces were good bite sized chunks, and you know it's super tender that close to the bone.
Good feed conversion ratio too... these guys are a great meat value!
And don't forget to throw the neck into your stockpot. Once reduced I peeled off the thin layer of skin from the neck and proceeded to pull off more meat from that one neck than I can get in a typical chicken thigh. Most of the pieces were good bite sized chunks, and you know it's super tender that close to the bone.
Good feed conversion ratio too... these guys are a great meat value!
