Oh yeah, rotisseried Duck for Dinner . . .

[conny63malies]

Quote:
And quiet they are.. I have 155x85 lot slapdap in the middle of a city where poultry is illegal. Nobody can hear them, the boys only make a hissing sound and the girls a short weak little quack when they are excited or angry. And boy you should see them when they wag their tails, or should i say half their body. THey are also awesome redneck trashcompactors, whatever we dont eat out the backdoor it flies. Mine also dont have a pond only a 5 gallon bucket of water . They like to stand in front of it sometimes pretending they take a bath.

 

[PurpleChicken]

We ordered 15 Muscovies from jmhatchery.com. We split the order
3 ways and ended up with 5. We were tempted to keep them as
pets because they were so cute at first but ended up processing them
when they started picking on our turkeys.

We ate two so far and they were excellent. We deep fried them but I'm
looking forward to roasting one.

3 of 5 were around 7 pounds dressed at 8 weeks. The other two were
around 5 pounds. I was impressed.

 

[conny63malies]

Quote:
never tried that i have a huge 2 gallon deep fryer at home.

 

[greyfields]

JM Hatchery gets a thumbs up from me, too.

To be honest, Geese are easier to raise than ducks. Ducks tend to be messier becuase they go 'digging' in the grass, whereas the geese just graze. This comparison in no way implies ducks are hard to raise, though, because they're not.

 

[keeperofthehearth]

They do make big poops but they also make big dinner!

Miss Prissy, methinks you love your geese!

3 of 5 were around 7 pounds dressed at 8 weeks. The other two were
around 5 pounds. I was impressed.

PurpleChicken, I am too! You must have fed them very well. And thanks, I was wondering where you might order the ducklings. I noticed Ideal didn't have them though I noted another BYC'er in Indiana does raise them.

Thanks all,for the good comments and info. I still have some logistics to figure out but have until spring to convince dh that it won't be too much trouble.

 

[Wildsky]

I have 6 muscovies, and some need to go.
The 3 boys are getting a little too fiesty.

Anyone want a couple of young male muscovies - let me know. I just don't have the heart to do the processing.

 

[keeperofthehearth]

Wildsky, Just a bit too far for me to gather those boys up.

Ahhh, spring plans. Gotta be good, winter is just now coming in. Yuk!!!!

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
We had to cull early too. The males can reach 12 pounds in 12 weeks.
http://www.jmhatchery.com/White-Muscovy-Ducks-p4.html

We fed them a 26% broiler feed that we feed all our meaties plus veggie
scraps and grass clippings.

This was our first venture into ducks. If we didn't have so many darn meat
birds right now I'd order some more.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
Processing a duck was much harder than a chicken. To start out with
there was the "cuteness" factor. I had a hard time with it and downed
a few drinks to get the guts to swing the hatchet. Then the down and
pinfeathers took time and patience to pick off. If duck skin wasn't so
good I would have skinned them instead of plucking.

 

[Heather J]

I've been threatening to process some of my water birds (I have both geese and ducks) because feed is getting so outrageous, but I just don't have the heart. But dang it, I'd like to know what duck tastes like!

I have a female muscovy and two males, and none of her eggs were fertile, despite the fact that the guy I got them from said he raised only muscovy ducks. What gives? I've also considered seriously getting rid of the geese because they're so noisy (middle of the night and everything), but I don't know how DH and I (who seldom even get to eat dinner together because of his work) would ever finish off a whole goose! Besides, they're like my watchdogs, keeping the hens safer. *sigh*