Life in the Dwindling West: raising Muscovy ducks

Sunday, May 1, 2016

It's now May 1st, though with the weather, you'd never know it. We have had snow three times in April, once nearly a foot. I had been putting my garden plants out in my portable greenhouse until the snow started!

What happened to spring?????

Deer in snow

Duck pen covered in snow

Actually kind of pretty!

This year the duck pen survived the snow, in part because I had redone the top and tied everything together and in part because we knocked as much snow off as possible. The dusk are doing fine. Two are brooding—well, kind of three. The one we call Broody who hatched a bunch of babies last year has been sitting for over three weeks. Then there are two sitting in another pen. They both sit on the eggs, at the same time. We had a third duck in there, but fights broke out, so she's now in the greenhouse at night until it dries out and I can put in another divider. If anymore fights break out, whoever is fighting is on their own outside the pens. I have no more room. Or said duck gets a room in the freezer. Muscovies are interesting ducks, but they do have a lot of interpersonal disputes.

The daffodils were blooming, but I had to bring them in when it got cold. There are more getting ready to bloom soon. Weather is forecast to hit 78F by Thursday. It has been a roller coaster here for about two months. Still hoping for spring soon!

These are the additional duck houses. We started putting them outside the pens with just an opening into them because the ducks don't make as much of a mess. All are hinged on the back for easy removal of eggs and bedding. We are learning ways to make the duck keeping easier as we go along.

This is my makeshift greenhouse. I put the small, portable one out by the corner of the house for hardening off my plants. The plants are doing well. Some of the tomato plants are over six inches tall. Last year at this time, my plants barely had their second leaves.

Lastly, it's Sasha doing what she does best—sleeping!

That's all for now!

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Muscovy Duck breeding

I am putting in pictures of my Muscovy ducklings to show how they grow. I want to note that most of what I have read about raising ducks is not really necessary and makes a lot of work for the owners. Bleaching bowls, changing bedding if it's wet, etc all made no sense to me. Ducks live in ponds and no one changes the bedding when it rains. My Muscovies would roost in trees if I didn't clip their wings. I wash out the bowls when they look nasty. I add bedding when it looks nasty. My ducklings (Pekins, Rouans) when I purchased them were put in enclosures at 60 to 70 degrees. I did not have the facilities for warmer. They all did just fine. The ducklings my hen hatched this year have been cared for her. I figure the duck knows more than I do about baby ducks. In the winter, my ducks had a freezer for shelter during the day and heat only when the temperature dropped below zero.

The one thing I did have to deal with is predators. Since I clipped the wings on my birds, they depend on me to protect them. In the past, the single most cause of duck loss for me was the neighbor's dog. They now have covered pens that they go in at night and the losses have gone down dramatically.

We did butcher four this AM and will do four more tomorrow. We don't have the facilities for keeping 16 ducks. The babies that hatched were always destined for the freezer. I wanted to know what the ducklings looked like as they got older. We started with adults, so I had no idea about the color changes as the Muscovies grew up. We ended up keeping one of the new males and getting rid of the older one. He was getting mean and beating up some of the females. Perhaps a younger male will not be so inclined. We hope not anyway.

Next year, if we let the hens brood, we will have to modify how they are caged and dealt with. We need more free-ranging during the day, for one thing. Otherwise, the growing ducks eat and eat. We went through 40 lbs of duck food in no time feeding them.

Here are the photos I promised—a day late!