Hi MLyd, as so many have muscovies here it´s difficult to sell them. Sometimes people will buy ducklings, but I think it´s more for the funof it, sometimes for eating, but generally if people want to eat them they also raise them. The meat is very nice, by the way. There are number of older folks here that don´t have the space for muscovies, but like their eggs. There are some cake recipes that only muscovy eggs will do it right, and some eat the eggs because of the higher iron content. A number of older folks like to take it raw beaten with something or other to treat anaemia. My friend was pregnant and wanted to do this for the iron, but I told her it wasn´t a good idea, even moreso that she´s pregnant. So, they don´t buy them for hatching, just for eating
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I have a tiny little light brahma chick that´s fighting for its life. Only one out of six eggs survived to hatch. And this single chick got separated somehow from the chicken last night and ended up down the side of the nestbox, between the straw and the wood. When I went out to check this morning, I couldn´t find it anywhere. So, I started to pull the old hay out of the nest, and there was its little body. But it was limp, so I knew it was alive. After a minute or so I could feel the heartbeat. It´s slowly improving, I don´t know yet if it´ll survive. It´s a nuisance, because I bought these brahma eggs to introduce new blood to mine, and so far it´s not gone very well. These are the ones that I had to put under a duck because the hen that I had intended to use got a wound and came off the nest the same day that I bought the eggs. Well, a lizard came and visited the duck, because two of the eggs vanished, so I moved the remaining 4 to a hen which by now had also gone broody. Of these, just the one hatched., and she let it get cold! (After a while the duck eggs also vanished, that´s why I think it was a lizard.)
Also, because I had no broody hen still after a week, I put another 6 eggs under another duck, and then when another hen went broody, I popped them under her and left the duck with 2 duck eggs. 2 of those 6 have gone bad so far, the remaining 4 are due to hatch next week. I have a feeling the whole thing will turn out to be a waste of time. Life´s never dull, eh?
Looking for show quality chicks for next year.
Is frostbite avoidable without electric heating? Should I add heat to my coop?
