For Sale - Muscovy Ducks - Devon/Cornwall

[HedgeComber]

I have a lovely collection of Muscovy ducks with the following currently available for sale...

* Laying ducks - Beautiful, gentle, friendly girls who lay large rich eggs (perfect for poaching & baking). Great slug busters & fly munchers too! £10 each

* Unsexed ducklings, all colours & ages available - What can I say, these little things are sooo cute! £5 each

* Hatching eggs - Pop under a broody or in an incubator. Broody hens make wonderful duckling moms! 6 for £5

Muscovies are a wonderful, quiet breed of bird who don't need a pond or lake to live on but do need constant fresh, clean water to drink and wash in. Something the size of a cat litter tray filled with water works a treat.
The girls make wonderful broodies and very protective mothers of chicks or ducklings.

If you have any questions, please holler x

[red]

oh gawd...how very tempting.....

muscovies fly dont they? we had one that used to pop over the back door (stable door) and nick the cat food.....

do they put themselves to bed or do you have to round them up?



(might be useful if you stuck your location in your profile then people would know if they had far to travel to get them etc)

[HedgeComber]

Muscovies do fly but most of ours don't due to having their wings clipped. You want some photos to tempt you even further Red...??

They put themselves to bed as it gets dark but this time of year I put them in at about 8ish for their tea. They are so much easier to 'herd' than chickens, you lift your left arm and they go to the right and vice versa. Lovely creatures, very intelligent and for me they are the best ducks as they are so quiet (had Aylesburys before and they just annoyed me )

[red]

i dont think i want any just yet... we have to build a hosue for them, move a million pallets, and have an old boat to set up for a pond... maybe if you have hatchign eggs next year we might be ready by then.


ehm.. if its not an out of place question..do you eat them? are they good eating birds?

[HedgeComber]

Thats why we breed them

The meat is rich and dark and very lean as they only have a very thin layer of fat under the skin. Nothing like the birds you'll buy in T***o which shrink by half during cooking as the fat melts away. These guys are all muscle.

We generally roast ours (making sure we leave a good bit of meat behind!) so we can fry the leftovers the next day in the little bit of duck fat and make crispy duck pancakes... Drool...

I see you're pretty close red, if you wanna pop down during the summer and 'meet' them you'd be more than welcome!

BTW if you're serious and are gonna build a house may I recommend you dont build a floor in it - just 4 walls on the ground (so long the fox cant get in) cleaning floors of their houses is a daily, messy job, the ones we have just sat on the dirt we dont clean, just throw sawdust in occasionally.

[HedgeComber]

Haha, chuckling that t.e.s.c.o. is censored here Love it

[Millymollymandy]

they are the best ducks as they are so quiet (had Aylesburys before and they just annoyed me )

oh god tell me about it

cleaning floors of their houses is a daily, messy job

oh god tell me about it

[red]

ack.. we have so much on... maybe hatching eggs later..when we have it set up... thanks for the tip re the house, thats a good point.

how old before you turn them into roast?

just been looking at your pictures on your blog- they do look nice ducks

[Muscroj]

oh no!!! I've been planning on getting chickens & have the wood to make a decent sized run off a shed that we have spare, but haven't yet got around to it yet. But now I'm thinking that perhaps ducks would be much more fun! What are they like to keep? How many eggs would a typical female lay per week? How much room would they need to be 'happy' (the run I'm planning to build will be about 12 foot x 6 foot). The shed is not huge, about 5 foot x 4 foot, with a concrete floor, but we were planning on keeping about 6 - 8 chicken in it as they would perch, presumably ducks don't perch so I wouldn't be able to keep as many in there? What does a typical 'flock' consist of? 1 male plus x number of females??

And lastly (for now ;) ) would you consider posting hatching eggs if we decided to go ahead as we're in Sheffield so unfortunately too far to travel to collect.

[HedgeComber]

they are the best ducks as they are so quiet (had Aylesburys before and they just annoyed me )

oh god tell me about it

cleaning floors of their houses is a daily, messy job

oh god tell me about it

Seperated at birth were we Milly...?! (have to say people look at me like I'm the devil incarnate when I say I don't like Aylesburys!)

[HedgeComber]

ack.. we have so much on... maybe hatching eggs later..when we have it set up... thanks for the tip re the house, thats a good point.

how old before you turn them into roast?

just been looking at your pictures on your blog- they do look nice ducks

We take them to around the 10 - 12 week mark.

[red]

ack.. we have so much on... maybe hatching eggs later..when we have it set up... thanks for the tip re the house, thats a good point.

how old before you turn them into roast?

just been looking at your pictures on your blog- they do look nice ducks

We take them to around the 10 - 12 week mark.

oh thats not bad - better than the cockerels we are doing at 20 weeks.

is plucking duck really bad though? or do you send them off/skin them?

[HedgeComber]

oh no!!! I've been planning on getting chickens & have the wood to make a decent sized run off a shed that we have spare, but haven't yet got around to it yet. But now I'm thinking that perhaps ducks would be much more fun! What are they like to keep? How many eggs would a typical female lay per week? How much room would they need to be 'happy' (the run I'm planning to build will be about 12 foot x 6 foot). The shed is not huge, about 5 foot x 4 foot, with a concrete floor, but we were planning on keeping about 6 - 8 chicken in it as they would perch, presumably ducks don't perch so I wouldn't be able to keep as many in there? What does a typical 'flock' consist of? 1 male plus x number of females??

And lastly (for now ;) ) would you consider posting hatching eggs if we decided to go ahead as we're in Sheffield so unfortunately too far to travel to collect.

They are not very strong layers, the 3 girls I have for eggs provide me with about 12-18 a week (that was a complete guess I'm afraid so please dont quote me on it ) Ducks are fab to keep but then so are chooks, if you want them predominantly for eggs then you'd have to go for a hybrid hen.

Muscovys adore foraging for baby slugs an other yukky things under the grass/above the roots, getting their bills right down in to the roots of snuffling around. If the run you are planning cannot be moved then they would soon eat all the grass and it would become a quagmire in no time. This wouldnt bother them too much so long as you had grass you could let them out on often to fulfil their foraging needs (preferably daily). They live much wetter than chooks so if you have only a smallish area to keep them then I think again, I'd go for chooks.

Our ducks are spoilt as they have free run of about 4 acres, although they never wander too far from food, water & people.

I've never posted hatching eggs before and would be concerned on how the hatching rate may be affected, but if you're will ing to give it a go I guess, why not?! The other option is if you know anyone that coming to Cornwall on holiday...

Good luck whichever you choose, you'll soon be addicted!

[HedgeComber]

ack.. we have so much on... maybe hatching eggs later..when we have it set up... thanks for the tip re the house, thats a good point.

how old before you turn them into roast?

just been looking at your pictures on your blog- they do look nice ducks

We take them to around the 10 - 12 week mark.

oh thats not bad - better than the cockerels we are doing at 20 weeks.

is plucking duck really bad though? or do you send them off/skin them?

Way easier than Aylesbury ducks due to the fat, when the feathers pull out the oil starts coming out too and in no time your hands are covered in oil and you're unable to grip the feathers properly. Euk. Bad memories there!!!

If the bird is young then it is easy enough, not that different from a chicken tbh. The pin feathers are tougher on a duck than a chook tho. Of course, if you dont need the skin on then you can just take the coat off with no plucking needed. We tried some duck burgers at a show recently and will try mincing some meat soon. Easy

[HedgeComber]

[quote="red"just been looking at your pictures on your blog- they do look nice ducks[/quote]

Loving your blog red, can't believe you've got blackberrys out up there... must go and see what my patches are doing.