We did it! Did in our first Duck the "old fashioned way"

[Lazaryss]

Quote:
I was actually thinking about picking up a pair of good kitchen shears with a decent sized bone breaker for it next time

 

[Chook Daddy]

Do you know if Mallard ducks are good to eat or could you recommend any.
Looking at starting some ducks for dual purpose, pleased to hear the culling went well.
What size run do you keep for ducks and don't laugh but do they fly off or do you clip their wings?

 

[Lazaryss]

We only have one mallard right now and we dont know when we are going to cull her currently as we have a lot of larger ducks. She DID fly off once. Dusky thought we had attracted a wild duck when she flew from the next yard into the pool. We clipped one of her wings immediately after.

 

[Lazaryss]

As for the size of the run, it is around 250-300 square feet, and is only used for evenings. They have a full acre and a half to stretch and run during the day.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

That's...actually a really great idea OP. Whenever I do get into processing birds, I never thought to try it out on a bird I don't know first. I'm having a really hard time with the whole idea of the actual killing part (I am used to cutting up/gutting already dead animals, so no problems there), so that may be as good an introduction as I could expect.

 

[Oregon Blues]

Chook Daddy, mallards are very small ducks. If you plan to eat ducks, I suggest something bigger for the same amount of work to process one. Mallards aren't great egg layers and they fly.

Pekin are the best meat duck. Silver Appleyards are the best dual purpose ducks. Welsh Harlequin are excellent layers and large enough to dress out and eat, but not the amount of meat you would get from a Pekin or Appleyard. Still, they are very pretty and lay tons of eggs.

You can eat any duck and they will be delicious. So if Mallards are what you want, get Mallards. You will get fewer eggs and less meat, but they are very pretty, so you will get a lot of entertainment value from them.

 

[DB_Tex]

I saw a youtube vid on field dressing mallards (from hunting) and it was called "breasting out". Eyeing up the one mallard I got from the mix duckling batch I don't see her having enough flesh on her to roast-- breast is about all they are good for based on my observation. On the upside it certainly is a fast process to breast out a few little mallards.

If you are terribly fond enough of mallard meat to raise it-- they are easy enough to get from hatcheries. You will have to keep them in a covered run, or clip their wings. Wing clipping is no big affair. As Lazaryss said, I had our mallard hen descend from 50 feet in the air to land in the swimming pool and I never even saw her coming! LOL Before she fully realized that she could use her wings to get away from me I caught her up and grabbed some scissors to snip her wing. All you need to do is cut down the flight feathers on one wing to prevent flight. You leave the outer 2 or 3 alone and you cant even tell the duck is missing them just by looking. I think it took me 15 minutes and 13 of those were spent looking for my scissors. I'll have to do it again when she moults.
As Oregon Blues said, all ducks are flavorful, if you go for a heavier domestic breed you won't have to worry about flight at all (too heavy in the body to really get off the ground.) You can go for a duck bred for meatiness and feed conversion like pekin, silver appleyard or muscovy (despite being big birds, muskies can still fly so you WILL have to clip those wings.) Or you can look for a dual purpose like an ancona or buff saxony. A visit to the duck forum will offer you a lot more ready info. Everyone's got favorites over there. I could tell of my experience raising different breeds, but so far, we've only eaten that rouen.

Thinking on it more, I'm thinking he might have been a little *too* flavorful for my taste, but then, it was super fresh with little seasoning. At the moment I'm leaning more toward the flavor of pekins I have had. I recall the flavor being a lot milder.