What age do Muscovies start laying and brooding ?

[RAREROO]

I'm hoping this year to start building up an army of muscovy broodies and I was wondering if they start laying and brooding in their first year like mallard derived ducks, or does it take two years on them ?

Thanks

 

[ian4379]

muscovy ducks are said to be mature at 7 months. personally i have had ducks lay and brood as early as five months, most are laying by six months. if you take the ducklings away from the mum at 3 to 4 weeks you'll get two or possibly 3 hatches in a season, mine lay again in the winter although hatch rates are poor in the winter.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Quote:
Are you planning on taking over the world?

 

[linen53]

I just started my ducks last May with 12 three-day-old Muscovies. The drakes started mating at about 3 1/2 months of age. The girls started laying at about 4 1/2 or 5 months of age. The eggs will start out very small, but the more they lay the larger the eggs will get. I also acquired some adult girls and once they settled in they were laying eggs as large as a goose would lay!

 

[RAREROO]

Quote:
Are you planning on taking over the world?

Oh my gosh, was it that obvious ?? Shhhhhh don't say nothing to nobody

 

[RAREROO]

Thanks you linen59 and ian4379. That's what I was thinking and hoping but I found a site somewhere last night that said they take two years to mature and so I wanted to check here before I got all disappointed about that.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Quote:
Are you planning on taking over the world?

 

[kuntrygirl]

Quote:
I had an army and I almost went AWOL which could have led me to a dishonorable discharge. It was not pretty. PLEASE take it from someone who knows about an army of muscovys. You may want to re-think that.

 

[RAREROO]

Quote:
I had an army and I almost went AWOL which could have led me to a dishonorable discharge. It was not pretty. PLEASE take it from someone who knows about an army of muscovys. You may want to re-think that.

What was the problem with them ?

 

[kuntrygirl]

Quote:
I had an army and I almost went AWOL which could have led me to a dishonorable discharge. It was not pretty. PLEASE take it from someone who knows about an army of muscovys. You may want to re-think that.

What was the problem with them ?

Oh, there was no problem with them. It was the problem with me. I was irresponsible and allowed them to hatch about 150 muscovy babies. It was too much for me. I will never ever ever EVER be that irresponsible again. You talk about an army. I had about 10 armys.