White Muscovies from J.M. Hatchery/ meat production bloodlines

[Cottage Rose]

An ad on BYC got my attention from J.M. Hatchery
advertising white Muscovies that are heavier than regular Muscovies
J.M. Hatchery uses breeding stock from France that has been genetically improved to produce birds that are 50% larger than other Muscovies, with males getting up to 12 lbs. by 12 weeks.
My focus with Muscovies has recently been leaning more toward raising them for meat and I was already thinking about getting some whites.
Just wondering if anybody here has breeding stock from this line of whites.
http://www.jmhatchery.com/ducks/white-muscovy-ducks/prod_4.html

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

Quote:
Whites make the best looking carcass.

I have about eleven of those that are about six weeks old already. They look smaller than my regular mixed muscovy ducklings that are seven weeks old. I wonder if their claim of a 50% bigger carcass is true though. They must be comparing it to a wild muscovy.

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

Well, I weighed two of the larger six week old JM muscovy ducklings, and they weighed 4.7 and 4.8 pounds each. I caught a large seven week old muscovy duckling and it weighed 3.5 pounds. Tonight I'll weigh some more.

It seems it was an optical illusion. The younger ones (JM's) are not feathering out all that well and just "look" smaller.

 

[Cottage Rose]

barbari...so have you raised other Muscovies than the ones from JM?

Is that the U.P. I see in your icon?

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

Quote:
Yes, I have a batch of eleven from JM that was hatched around August 26th. I have a batch of twelve that a hen of mine hatched on August 19th. They are the ones I am comparing.

Currently, I have about 50 pekins, 10 mallards and maybe 40 muscovies. Nine fertile muscovy eggs are in an incubator and due to hatch in two weeks. I plan to carry about 50 ducks total through the winter for breeding stock. The JM males will replace my current group of three drakes.

I have four brooding pens of various sizes. Here my dog found an empty one to sleep in and a group of muscovy ducklings joined her.

Another shot of the brooding pens.

Yes, it is the UP. We get a lot of snow.

 

[Cottage Rose]

Well howdy,
I'm your neighbor down here in mid west Michigan.

Where abouts are you located?
PM me if you don't want to say publicly.
If not too far from the bridge maybe I can buy a
JM white pair from you if you end up with any extras.
LOVE your Great Pyrenees!
I had one years ago.
Great breed!
Enjoyed your pics.

BTW what is the minimum order for the ducklings from JM?
I don't plan on getting any now but might next spring
especially if I can't get any from you.

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

I just weighed one of the larger seven week old ducklings, and "he" weighed 5.4 pounds. So, I don't know if there is any real benefit to a JM duckling other than color yet.

Here are the JM ducklings. I just took the picture, and the dog has to have her nose into everything. They are a very ratty group. They do not bathe at all, where as the pekins in the nearby pens are fastidious about their cleanliness. Had to bathe them myself because they got so bad. The JM group was given their freedom a couple days ago. They are no longer penned up and are allowed to go outside and mix with the other ducks.

Minimum order from JM was 15 ducklings. They sent 16, one DOA, two dead within a couple hours, and I lost two more last week.

The dog has been living with the ducks full time since she was six weeks old. She is now four months old and 45 pounds. Came from a goat and chicken farm in the Soo. Everybody is still alive and well.

 

[Cottage Rose]

I was talking to a friend last night that has had Muscovies forever and he said Metzers also has the French bloodlines and they do tend to be bigger.

I'm very surprised your white ducklings don't want to bathe.
Mine are always jumping in their pool and playing around, cleaning and preening. Maybe these white Muscovies are dumber like those heavy, chicken broiler strains that just eat and lay around.
Have you noticed they're less active than your other Muscovies? My Muscovy ducklings free range all day.
Walking around eating grass, chasing bugs, playing in their pool with naps in between.
Maybe because you still offer them a heat lamp they tend to stay huddled up under it.
I have a group thats only around 5 - 6 weeks old and they haven't had supplemental heat for the last 3 weeks and they seem fine but I suppose expend more energy on staying warm but they seem fine. They do have a nice cozy stall to go to every night and on cold, rainy days which we seem to be having EVERYDAY lately! UGH!

So nobody else around here raising Muscovies for meat?

 

[keeperofthehearth]

We do. It's our first year with Muscovies so we've been learning a lot. We wanted to raise them for meat for ourselves and maybe give a few away as gifts to friends and family & also sell some off as pets. I also just like them & want a few around as pets. We picked some up fm a breeder at a good price at the end of last winter so weren't necessarily looking for particular blood lines. We have found that the heavily barred or blues do clean up better when processed so we kept a young blue draklet as our breeding male for next year. I'm not ready to go with all white yet since we are also selling them as pets. Life happened and we didn't get our May hatches processed as soon as we needed to. They were getting out of hand so I posted to Craigslist and sold them at a loss to an Asian lady 93 miles fm us. Found out that the Asian market like their Scovies older & 5mo. was as young as she wanted them. She told me that they would have preferred to have them 6mo. or older and as old as 1 -2 yrs.

Quite different than what I'd read to expect. I actually received a email fm her a day later thanking me for the ducks and saying she was hoping to do business with us again next year. She'd like us to supply her with 40-60 Scovies each year... not something we are ready or able to do, I'm afraid.

When I first began reading this thread yesterday, I was wondering if we were looking at the equivient of the Cornish X meat birds in these larger, quicker growing French Scovies. I wonder if they will have more leg problems ect. I know my Scovies are always preening, foraging & getting into everything. I suppose it may depend on your market if this new line would make sense to raise. Let us know if you do go that route, CR, and maybe you could post the pro's & con's you find in the breed.

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

Now that you mention it, they really aren't very active, not like any of the other ducks. The broiler comparison has merit. Again, last night I took three in and gave them a warm shower to clean off all the poop. They are almost bald on their backsides. I had taken away the heat lamp last week, but two died during that time so I turned it back on. It has been getting cold up here. One night last week it was in the mid 20's. Daytime temperatures are in the 40's and 50's.