Questions About Cayugas

[ejctm]

They are beautiful birds!

 

[goosedragon]

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What was the source of your information that not many people people breed them? I suspect that it is just plain wrong. They aren't great egg producers nor great meat birds but they are gorgeous and many people keep a few around just for that reason.

 

[CityChicker]

Endangered?!?! Cayugas? ENDANGERED? LOL. That literally makes me choke on my coffee. You have *got* to be kidding me. I'm sure the source of this erroneous information is the same one as always, GooseDragon.

I'm sorry, but the group that gives all these almost totally meaningless categories for domestic ducks (as far as their purported levels of "rarity"), does a real disservice to the breeds or species that truly are endangered. Cayugas, not even in anyone's most wild fantasies, would be considered endangered. They are probably one of the most established breeds of domestic poultry. There are probably somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of them just in the US.

 

[Perocore]

In the book we read (searching for book) the cayuga was listed in watched breeds due to the fact that they only lay 100 eggs a year (or such). I love our cayugas, though for some reason our drake has a yellow beak, but is deffiantly a drake and deffiantly a cayuga (got them from the Mcmurry Hatchery). We got them because I love dark colored ducks and because they originated here in NY. My drake is enormous compared to our little mallards (who were supposed to be rouens!) but Boggy Bottom Bantams's look huge! XD

And gryeyes, we read that these are super broody ducks and will even succesfully raise ducklings in the winter! Atleast that's what we read...
Here's Domis (my drake)

and all of the Cayugas (with mallards and rouen)

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

yep, they are supposed to be a decent bit larger than the mallards, They are classed as a medium weight duck, just under the rouens as far as size goes.
As far as endangered.
Technically, they are classed that way, but yes, it's a joke, I would dare say over a 250,000 in private collections in the US alone. It's always funny to me to see how many domestic waterfowl and chickens are so call endangered or threatened. FROM WHAT! KFC??

No domestic bird is honestly endangered in the true term of the word, like wild species are, if so, Honestly, you would have to have an Endangered species permit to hold and sell them just like in wild fowl.

 

[10ducks]

The threatened status comes from the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. Here's the listing for Cayugas:
http://albc-usa.org/cpl/waterfowl/cayuga.html

Here's how they arrive at their numbers:
http://albc-usa.org/cpl/cpl_explained.html

They wildly underestimate because basically they are only counting big breeders and show bird people, and missing all of us regular people with small flocks. The thing is, there are a LOT of us!

I love the looks of Cayugas, and keep a few in my flock for their beauty. But I sell my duck eggs, and very few people want Cayuga eggs. If they can get over the "dirty" black shell, then they are upset about the tiny black pigment spots within a lot of Cayuga eggs. So I don't keep many for that reason. We just hold back the Cayuga eggs for our own use and sell the eggs from our Welsh Harlequins, Golden 300s and Khaki Campbells.

 

[Karen09]

I know this is an old post but I have a trio of Cayuga Ducks and have hatched out 14 from the incubator and 4 from under a chicken. I have people that did not like duck eggs - they said they were too strong of a flavor. When I gave them my Cayuga eggs, they thought the color of the shell was "way cool" cause they look like stones and then they liked the buttery, richer flavor than the "old chicken eggs". Others couldn't tell the difference from a chicken egg. Maybe the color doesn't bother them too much because I have Ameraucanas (blue eggs) and Easter Eggers (green eggs) and other just brown egglayers (from light to dark) so they are used to a wide variety of colors. They definitely like the size! I have a question though, I have read in the APA that the Cayugas have a black/slate bill but I was told that as the male matures, his bill gets lighter and a yellowish color to it. Is this true? You can see his beak in not a true slate color but with a slightly yellowish tint.

 

[Big Dreamer]

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And all the other Muscovey haters, I thought the same thing but once you get them fall in love (Like any other duck) you really get used to it and then just focus on other physical characteristics or habits..they are a beautiful duck, that is after you get over the fact of the weird red skin!

 

[ZoeS95423]

Im not sure either. I had a cayuga pair, but I got rid of the drake because he was incredible mean to my other ducks. And I know some other people that hate them as well.

 

[Karen09]

My Cayuga drake is very sweet. It could be just the one's personality. I have had sweet roosters and mean of the same breed. I guess I got lucky with the drake I do have. I think the Muscovys are beautiful but some with all that facial "comb" type - are a bit difficult to look at. I saw one with a growth that was gross looking - but I guess someone could love it. I was told that their "combs" can get frostbite easily but I see many here in Western NY. I have a friend who went to a farm sale to get "forging tools" - yes he is a Blacksmith and there were 3 pitiful little ducklings so he took pity on them and took them home. It was a trio of Muscovys and they reproduced and reproduced and... by the end of the first summer, they had 200 ducks. They started processing them cause they did not have the room but as fast as they processed, more were hatched out. This story was one of the stories why we went with Mallards and Cayugas - not as many babies.