You are never gonna guess ...UPDATE in OP

[1stepcloser]

A giant white muscovy!!

My daughter said she/he was in the middle of the road and followed her home.

I think it was the duck the people down the street were offering my kids earlier. Had I known it was a muscovy I would have JUMPED on it! She is hanging out in our backyard right now w/the chickens (bad biosecurity, I know).

Of course we will tell them we found her. Maybe they will let us keep him/her. She/he seems a little underweight and is eating layer crumbles like crazy and is pretty easy going about being picked up/handled.


In the mean time, I have a couple of questions for the resident duck experts here. LOL She/he makes kind of an exhaling hissy noise and wags his/her tail a lot. Is that normal?

ETA: Duck has been removed from being near flock and is in a dog kennel with lots of straw and feed. Her toes are freezing...poor baby!


Update:

Well, he is ours.

Apparently they don't have a fenced yard. They just let him roam around. How he has avoided getting ripped to shreds by a dog or creamed by a car is beyond me. Any recommendations on clipping muscovy wings? Our 10x10 coop should be ready in a couple of days but in the mean time I want to make sure he doesn't fly away. At the moment, he is just pacing our fence looking totally perplexed. He was up on our deck earlier tapping his beak on our glass door trying to look in. LOL

OH! And he has been dubbed "Marty McFly" in the hopes he will be a fly catching fool for us!

 

[Goat_Walker]

Totally normal. Can we see a picure please?? Then we can tell you male or female.

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Ah, poor little frozen toed ducky! Can you put a pan of warm water in there to warm her up?

i know nothing about ducks. But i suspect folks here are gonna want to see some pictures. i know i do.

 

[Mojo Chick'n]

muscoveys hiss instead of quacking - it's normal

the tail wagging is normal, too.

I always thought that ducks don't get very many of the same diseases that chickens get, so it is safer to just let them together without quarantine. Although I suppose it's better to be safe than sorry.

meri

 

[1stepcloser]

Here she/he is. She is just eating/drinking non-stop. I didn't give her a pan of warm water. Should I? It is in the 50's outside right now. You can't really see the big tail from the pic.

 

[Goat_Walker]

You dont need to see the tail with scovies, just the feet and the face. Im not a scovie expert, but id say a young male. I mean it could be female but usually the males have that bump on the nose. Never seen a female with it. but thats just me.

 

[LMEggs]

Looks pretty healthy to me and very BOY looking! <3 MUSCOVYS!!!!! -sqeezes him in a hug- Hope you get to keep the little guy!

 

[Goat_Walker]

Yay!!!!!!!!!! So glad you get to keep him!!!


I wish ducks would follow me home....

 

[TennesseeTruly]

Awwww he's great!! I haven't told my husband yet but I want to get some muscovies. LOL I had better wait to tell him this seeing we just drove yesterday round trip 15 hours to get 3 geese to the other side of Tennessee.

The first time I saw some muscovies, I saw them coming out of a large hole in a tree by a pond where we used to live in NY. I thought they were the weirdest looking things ever.

Good luck with Marty! He's a cutie pie!

Laurie