Search This Blog

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Myth of the non-flying male muscovies

Perpetrator of escape is on the left

While I have read over and over and over that male muscovy ducks cannot fly, that information is actually quite inaccurate.

Extreme cold is coming and my hubby and I were trying to move the ducks into the greenhouse due to impending subzero temperatures when New Male decided he did not want to go in.  He took off, soared 20 feet in the air and landed 100 yards away in the neighbor's yard.  He had gotten off the ground once before, but only about 6 feet.  Every blog I've read says males cannot fly.  They obviously have not met New Male.

My husband manage to chase him down and corner him.  I notice when Tiny flew off to the neighbor's yard earlier this summer, she wouldn't fly back over the fence.  When I penned her close to the fence, she finally flew over.  Then, I just waited until she walked back to the duck area and she went right into a pen.

Since cold was coming, we wanted to catch New Male and stuff him in the greenhouse now.  After being caught (the neighbor has a lot of piles of junk'n'stuff) in a dead end area, New Male was brought back to our yard and his wings immediately clipped.  He was then tossed into the greenhouse.

There is one more female whose wings are not clipped but I couldn't catch her in the greenhouse, so when it warms back up, we'll run them out one at a time.

Ducks are an endless source of new and different experiences.  Henceforth, I shall assume ALL muscovies can fly and clip away on those flight feathers.

Happy new year!