Too many boys

[farmgirl3001]

Hi everyone, so my question is can muscovies and pekins breed? The reason I ask is last year I ordered 5 ducks from my feed store and as it turned out I got 4 males and 1 female. The female (puddles) I keep with my chickens away from the boys or she gets totally assaulted by the boys, all the fellas are completely free range, they can go into the barn if they want bout very rarely do. So I'm thinking they need girlfriends I love muscovies but want to try a different breed. Are my muscovy males just to big for a pekin female? Is it possible to x breed the 2? Or should I just get them some muscovy females?

 

[Amiga]

I might go with Muscovy females. Pekins and Muscovies have bred, but I tend to feel that the larger breed should be the female. In this case, since Pekins might be, what, 8 to 10 pounds, a male Muscovy can be significantly larger than that. Just my thought. Many people mix them up that way. Any female offspring could not produce viable (hatchable) eggs. But they would lay.

 

[farmgirl3001]

Thank you.Sounds like muscovy females would be the wiser choice, is 1 female to 1 male sufficient, or should there be more?

 

[DUCKOBSESSED]

You could go with Jumbo pekins. Mine are larger then my muscovie girls

ETA: a good ratio is 1:3

 

[farmgirl3001]

Never heard of jumbo pekins, I'm very new to this whole duck thing. Will the offspring produce viable eggs, or no like regular pekins? But on the other hand if the eggs are non viable wouldn't that be a way of controlling the duck population? What I'd like is for all the males and females to be free range, without having to separate the females because of how aggressive the males get

 

[DUCKOBSESSED]

The eggs would not be viable. Only female muscovies would produce offspring that can produce viable eggs.

Not the best pic but the bigger white one is a jumbo Peking female the smaller white one is a male Peking, both full grown.

 

[farmgirl3001]

Oh I like those are they ever pretty, what's the other duck in the picture?it's really nice looking. So with jumbo females everyone could happily co exist and I wouldn't end up with 1000 ducks?

 

[DUCKOBSESSED]

my scovies up front and jumbo pekin behind them

 

[DUCKOBSESSED]

I think they could.And I believe that the eggs could be fertile. The babies they produce would be sterile but Pekins are not broody birds so you would not end up with a lot of babies. The blue duck is a Blue Swedish.

 

[farmgirl3001]

Those are gorgeous! Mine are all just white. Another question for you if you don't mind, are pekins more of a water duck? The whole reason I got ducks was because I bought a farm last year and it has a beautiful big pond... So I thought well I will get some ducks to swim in my pond. Having no idea at the time that muscovies aren't really water ducks, they spend 90 percent of their day laying under a tree and the other 10 begging for dog food at the door, lol. your blue one is to die for. Where do I find ducks like that!?