My husband wants to eat so much poultry...

[missnu01]

jdywntr - You can cross muscovy and pekin, but the offspring will be sterile.

This page has more info: http://www.metzerfarms.com/MuleDucks.cfm

I can't find anywhere that has muscovy ducks that doesn't want an arm and my firstborn son for shipping. I am just going to get all the ducks sexed from cackle hatchery. I would like some muscovy ducks as they are quieter and brood their young well, and you can eat them...but alas...it seems as though they are not for me...Although there is someone who has some for sale 2 hours from me.

 

[jdywntr]

jdywntr - You can cross muscovy and pekin, but the offspring will be sterile.

This page has more info: http://www.metzerfarms.com/MuleDucks.cfm

Yes I am aware of that. If you cross a Muscovy drake with a Pekin hen the resulting offspring will be fast growing and the size of a Pekin. If you cross a Muscovy hen with Pekin drake you will get ducklings with the size difference of muscovy.

 

[jdywntr]

Well we are going to get only 5 ducks, and 7 turkeys..
I spent a lot of time last night writing out my response, and then hit some button wrong, thusly erasing all my hard work, then I became exasperated and figured I could just write today...

My saving grace is that all the chicks will not arrive at the same time. There will be time inbetween...

So the first order I will have 19 chicks in a brooder, and then 15 meat chicks in a brooder...
Once they are in a grow out pens, then I will be getting

21 Chicks in a brooder
5 ducklings in a brooder
7 poults in a brooder.

I will be using one home made large brooder to deal with the chicks, and the ducks and turkeys will get various x-large mastiff sized dog crates, but separate of course. I think I might do the ducks inside. Since there are only 5.

All the rest will brood in one of the various outbuildings.

My husband is coming up with our construction plans. Chicken coops are easy. I mean you need a door, some windows that don't close, and some roosts. Low roosts for the meaties, and no roosts for my layers as they use the barn rafters. No roosts for the ducks, and large roosts for the turkeys.
I will need 5 brooder light set ups...but they are not very expensive. I plan on trying to grow enough stuff, indoors and out to keep the feed costs considerably lower. Not to mention our land is basically wild...nobody has done anything with it and it is all overgrown. I would be delighted if the ducks chickens and turkeys could take care of some of it for us.

There will be no more chicken purchases after this. I am also getting an incubator, so that I can just keep on keeping on solely with these first orders. That is my hope. If the ducks or turkeys don't lay, or work out, then perhaps I would try running turkeys and ducks again depending on why it failed this time around.
I ordered only sexed ducks, so I feel like they will work out, but the turkeys are all straight run...so it is possible, although not probable that I end up with all males. If that happened I would get to see how I liked raising turkeys enough to know whether I wanted to try it again or not.

I just figure if you are going to do something then do it...

Sounds like a plan. You may want to rethink the ducklings inside. I brooded inside ONCE. They are adorably cute little stinky gross things. Until they grow.

As long as you got one male you will get fertile eggs. Pekin lay very well. You could end up with a broody, its not unheard of just not very common. You can incubate them for offspring though.

 

[missnu01]

I am also planning on getting an incubator. I am going to order one Rouen Drake, 2 peking hens, and 2 khaki hens...Obviously next year will be mixes and so on and so on...but I grew up on a lake with marauding mallard ducks, and am used to that color scheme, but Rouens are larger, and larger is better if you ask me. Which is why I picked him as my drake. Can those 3 interbreed and produce offspring. I assume they can since Rouens and Campbells are both off shoots of mallards. Not sure about the pekings though. I am hoping to be able to sell some chicks (some mixed, some pure), ducklings (mixed), and poults (bourbon red) next year...If nothing else the ducks will be cute inside for a few weeks and then we can move them outside. I just want something cute and fuzzy that I can play with whenever I want, and I am super looking forward to ducklings swimming in my bath tub.

Here is a question. A little bit from my house there is a lake and a park, and the lake is full with ducks...peking, crested, mallards, cayugas, Swedish all of them...and because they are living at the park they are all super friendly and just swamp people as soon as they see them...how much trouble would I get into if I just went and boxed up a few ducks ya think?

 

[Spifflove]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/newestpost/723511

This is a thread where a man tried to rescue some Muscovy. Everyone has a cell phone nowadays.

 

[missnu01]

I'm not sure what that link was for. I'm also pretty sure you aren't supposed to take ducks from the lake, but there are hundreds of all varieties...the mallards I understand, but is there such a thing as wild crested pekin ducks? Because there are more than a few of those...A whole lot of pekin ducks really. Most of the ducks are sort of standoff ish, except for the pekin and it seems that there are more varieties every year. There didn't used to be swedish, but this past year there were suddenly 3 in residence. I don't know if people get tired of having ducks and just turn them loose on the lake or what. Do you think the city stocks them? Surely they would not add ducks that aren't wild to begin with. More than a few of the mallards have Angel wing pretty severely, which might be genetic, or might be due to a poor diet. The science seems to be unsure...Either way a lot of the Pekin and Crested pekins are super friendly and will let you pick them up and carry them around...they will also follow you if they think you have food on you. I have often wondered if I could just lead a trail of bread crumbs to the backseat of my car and then just let what happens happen...if the cops show up, just be like how the heck did these ducks get in the car...actually here is a video of a police officer getting attacked by one of the ducks at the park I am talking about.
It is Lake Louise in Weaverville, NC...


I haven't been attacked...I have been swamped, and had to stand on top of picnic tables because 60 ducks are all crowded into a shelter trying to steal our birthday pizza...Lol.

 

[missnu01]

Here is another one that sort of gives you an idea of the number and variety of ducks I am talking about here...


Not sure if that one is working here...
Either way it is a really big lake, easily capable of having as many ducks as it does...this isn't a rescue thing...I just want some ducks, and there are a million there...it's just me being selfish. Most of the ducks look healthy other than a few cases of angel wing...which I'd say you are likely to see a few cases anytime you are looking at hundreds of ducks.

 

[flood]

I know you want cute little ducks in the house. They are so sweet. I have had ducks for only one year. I started with two while we lived in the city. Pekin and mallard. They stayed in a large lawn mower box (2.5ft x 4ft) in the living room. It worked out well for about hmm, maybe 8 days cleaning it every few days. Then they stank. We loved them anyway and played with them in the tub...and made them duckling diapers so they could hang with us on the couch. We had to change the bedding daily and they spent part of the day outside in the yard in a moveable 4x4 pen. I thought, and still do, that if they stink then I am too late in cleaning.

We have since moved and have hatched ducklings 3 times this year. Once it was 3 ducklings...they stank by day 3 of starting to eat, changed the bedding twice a day for a week then they moved out. Once it was 5 and the brooder box couldn't last a day after they started eating...they clearly needed more space. When I hatched the large lot...I think it was 16 or so...they went directly to a brooder area in the barn. They are such nasty critters. The most we've had are 27 adults and they have a coop that is 12x25 and totally free range during the day. I want to clean it once a week but sometimes I have to do more. I prefer straw for them since they are so wet and poopy you have to change it quite often and i feel like i waste my pine bedding on that many birds. I underlay the straw with shaved bedding near the water and where they love to congregate. I love our ducks and can't see myself ever living without them.

Now chickens on the other hand...I *could* get lazy about chickens in my inside brooder because it takes so long to stink. They are very sweet clean little things.

Lorie
edited to add my name, need to do that signature soon.

 

[missnu01]

So I should pick a few ultra cute chicks to have inside...nah I think I should just kick everyone outside, and just bring the ducks in regularly for play and bath time. That does sound better. Lol.
So straw bedding for the ducks..that is what I use for my chickens. Have you tried any other bedding types? Don't ducks spend a lot of time outside too though? I went with straw because it is so so so much cheaper than shavings...I have added some shavings to my coop since then though. We were cutting up some big pine logs, and I saved all the shavings...So they were free...and you can't beat free. I like the straw. It will be easier to compost, and the chickens seem to like scratching in it.


Our turkeys, ducks, and chickens will all be free range. My chickens already are. We just have to block them from going in the road...my current chickens treat the road like a fence of sorts, but they also don't really go very far on the property at all...they farthest I have seen them venture is maybe 80 ft from the coop...Lol. Not wanderers. I hear that ducks and turkeys will make use of the available space we have a little better. Which I am just fine with. But we live on wooded banks pretty much and there is so much leaf litter and little plants the chickens just scratch and scratch all day long..Lol. I am hoping that the ducks and turkeys turn out as well as the chickens have so far. It's been great.

 

[Freakmonger]

I am new to the duck world and the meat bird, but I recieve my new delights on the 20th, from what I have read it doesnt seem that the slaughtering process has been covered. From what I have read slaughter takes place when the birds are in molt so that the pin feathers are easier to remove? Please help me clarify that, but I believe that that is something to take into account. SOooo as well if you wanted you could get more smaller shipments of birds at intervals. But just a thought.