Muscovies

One of our Muscovy ducks recently hatched a brood of eleven ducklings!

Muscovies are excellent livestock for backyard homesteading, mini-farming purposes.

While they are often referred to as a duck, they aren’t related to the Mallard like the other domestic duck breeds. They have some characteristics of ducks, but are also similar to geese. They don't take to deep water like ducks, though they enjoy having plenty of water to wash in. Like other waterfowl they need water deep enough to submerge their nostrils and eyes to keep them clean. Like ducks, they like to mix their food with water--what a mess in the brooder pens. Muscovies are South American birds that like to roost in trees at night, and have fairly sharp claws that enable them to do so. They're not strong flyers, but they have no trouble clearing our five- and six-foot fences, if we don't remove the flight feathers from one wing.

One thing is for certain, Muscovies are much quieter than either our ducks or our geese. In fact they make no sound except for a rare, short "peep" and a warning "hiss." This is a good animal to have in a close neighborhood. Muscovy drakes weigh up to about 15 pounds and ducks weigh about half of that. They come in a variety of colors, and in our experience color of the offspring is not dependent on the color of the parents.

Muscovies are grazers like geese and a large part of their diet at our place comes from good forage--weeds in the margins of the yard and in the lawn, and the lawn itself. We haven't mowed our back lawn since March of last year, just before our water fowl arrived. They keep it mowed. Their droppings dissolve right into the lawn with a good rain, a decent run of the sprinklers, or a blast from the hose. Lawn mowed, fertilized and watered--just like that. Like ducks, they’ll happily clean up food wasted by other animals and they love live worms, slugs, earwigs, flies and mosquitoes. Our little ducklings have been hunting flies since the day they hatched.

Our Muscovies and other water birds take cover at night under our dwarf citrus trees (the branches hang fairly close to the ground). Other simple housing (a portable pen, a shed) offers protection from predators.

Muscovies are said to set clutches of between 8 and 20 eggs, three or four times per year. Ours are on track for those numbers. We have a drake and two ducks. One duck has started a clutch of eggs, but none hatched (35 days is the incubation period). We have an incubator we have used for chickens and our Campbell ducks and are planning to use it for our geese (although right now our goose, Buttercup, is sitting on a clutch of about 20).  If a hen, duck, or goose hatches its own brood, she'll provide warmth for the hatchlings. We don't have to provide a brooder. The offspring are more likely to hatch and brood their own if they had been brooded by their mother. So we resist using the incubator unless it becomes obvious after a few tries that the mama will not sit on her eggs long enough for them to hatch.

Anecdotal evidence indicates that Muscovies are usually better mothers than other ducks and that it’s best to keep the drakes separate from the ducklings. They may sometimes unintentionally trample ducklings. Our drake, Socks, however is a great dad. He will stand watch as mama duck and the ducklings eat. When they have eaten, he will take his turn. We do keep our ducklings and mama in a pen at night to keep them safe from predators.

We supplement our ducklings with a chick starter After a few weeks, the ducklings can be switched to a chicken grower feed, although ours will have access to all the tender grass and weeds they want. At about 4 months they'll be ready to harvest, especially if we supplement with a grower feed.

Muscovies have less fat than Mallard-type ducks. The breast on a Muscovy is large and almost fat-free. We think it tastes very much like beef. In fact, cooked properly and served with a little horseradish sauce, it is reminiscent of prime rib. The darker meat of the Muscovy tastes more like chicken. (Doesn't everything taste more or less like chicken?)