Processing Muscovies

[Rod W]

Tomorrow I will pick up between 20 -30 Muscovy ducks that are aproximately 5 pounds each. Shortly after I get these ducks home, I will process them, just to test out my plucker on these ducks. Could someone tell me the age of these ducks, I forgot to ask. Would the scald time be the same as for adult ducks? Should I chill these birds after dressing? Shall I let them "RELAX" in a refrige or cooler, and if so for how long??? If I can figure out how to post pictures, I will do so. I am expecting these ducks will be filled with pin feathers and I am prepared to WAX, if not that will be a big plus!!! Thank You,ROD

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

ok, so . . . you want one of us to tell you the age of the ducks that you just bought??? lol forgive for for being lost on that one!
If no duck people are on here right away (sorry I'm not one) do a search for muscovie, there was recently a thread on here answering most of those questions.

 

[Raiquee]

I would say around the 8-10 week range. You are not going to get a definate answer, because of if they foraged or not. But Scovies put on pounds fast (for ducks) and I know around 16 weeks the males hit around 12 pounds.

 

[Rod W]

Well, I finally got my Muscovies. I was only able to pick up 11 of them. I will probably pick up some more this week. AFTER I buY a new digital camcorder AND camera!! I went to take some pics of the plucking process and dead battery, it seems as the little woman has been charging the camera every time she uses it. I would guess time for a new battery. I think we had aproximately 9 young birds and 2 adults. We used Metzer Farms suggested scald times of 3-5 minutes and this was way to long. When we did the one for 5 minutes it cooked the bird and tore the skin pretty badly so we backed down to 1 minute and this was a lot better and 1 1/2 minutes seemed like the optimum time for these young birds.(We only had 2 birds left to do!) I showed my cousin how to bleed/kill these birds viA the cone, had another guy scalding and I did the plucking. I helped my cousin dress the birds as I had time. I would say we did the 9 (my cousin took 2 birds home to his creek as pets) birds in about an hour and a half. My wife probaBLY had another 1 hour over the sink/wrapping paper. Pictures HOPEFULLY later this week! Thank You, ROD---oohh, I once again showed my cousin how to extract the lungs in one piece, one hand for the one side of the bird, and the other hand for the opposite side of the bird. He finally got a whole lung out and stated that works pretty well!!