Raising Mule Ducks for Meat - My Journal

[Mylied]

I posted some in another thread about hatching mule ducks. I've been tracking their weights and I've found it interesting, so I'm sharing.

Backstory: I have 3 almost one year old pekin girls I got as ducklings. I added a muscovy drake on January 7th. I learned this combo makes mule ducks which are infertile and don't lay eggs. I impatiently set some eggs shortly after getting him. 11 eggs went in the incubator. 3 never developed. 1 quit early. 1 quit late. 6 successfully hatched starting on the 14th of February. The last hatched on the 16th.

I've been taking an average of their weight gain each week on friday. They started at 1.4 ounces. The first week they gained 2 ounces. The second week they gained 4.2 ounces. Today they gained 8.75 ounces. They weigh an average of 1 lb each at 3 weeks old. I'm wondering if they'll keep doubling their weight gain each week. I plan to process 2 at 7 weeks, 2 at 12 1/2 weeks, and 2 at 18 weeks to see which is best. I've been keeping track of feed costs to but it's a bit skewed now since I bought little bags of organic duck crumbles. I'm going to switch to a cheaper feed.

Anyway, here's some pics.

 

[Mylied]

One more thing. I put 7 eggs in the incubator 10 days ago. Only 2 developed. We had some freezing nights so not sure if that had something to do with it. I'm going to incubate 36+ duck eggs in a week to do a big check on fertility. I'm marking dates on the eggs as I collect them in case the older eggs don't develop.

 

[Jpat]

I like statistics and data i love this thread
@casportpony weighs her babies and so does @WannaBeHillBilly they could compare charts better

Your ducklings exponential growth will slow, if they doubled their weight every week they would be 16 pounds at 7 weeks and still growing
if you charted in a diagram the growth over 11 weeks would sorta be :

I had mules before and what the farm told me was to expect 70% hatchrate and 60% of them to be males. That hatchrate being fairly low

 

[Mylied]

I like statistics and data i love this thread
@casportpony weighs her babies and so does @WannaBeHillBilly they could compare charts better

Your ducklings exponential growth will slow, if they doubled their weight every week they would be 16 pounds at 7 weeks and still growing
if you charted in a diagram the growth over 11 weeks would sorta be :
View attachment 2044025

I had mules before and what the farm told me was to expect 70% hatchrate and 60% of them to be males. That hatchrate being fairly low

I don't think my husband would mind 16 lb ducklings at 7 weeks. Lol. I've read everything I could find on mules since I got the drake. So I was happy with my 6 ducklings the first go. Then surprised only 2 developed in the second batch. I think this third time will give me a better picture of fertility and hatchability. The drake, we call him Howard, sure loves doing his job. Every time I clean the pool, he nabs the first hen in.

 

[Mylied]

This week the ducklings gained an average of 5.35 oz so I guess it's starting to level out. I took pics of each duck. They aren't tamed so they didn't like it. Lol. They hatched over a period of 3 days so I'm assuming that's accounts for the size difference.
1lb 6.4oz

1lb 9.4oz

1lb 6oz

1lb 4.2oz

1lb 2.2oz

1lb 6oz

 

[Clearwater Chicken]

they are super cute. this is very interesting

 

[Mylied]

they are super cute. this is very interesting

Thanks. They are cute and ultra plushy. Those claws though, man. And they already know how to scratch with them.

 

[Clearwater Chicken]

Teenage duck claws are the worst, been there been scratched

 

[Knighstar679]

The one that had the largest gain might also be male. The girl mules can lay eggs FYI but they will be infertil.

 

[Ratchnick]

Very cool thread. Will be watching.