Muscovy Ducks are personable and quackless - a neighborly trait. Their meat is leaner than that of other ducks. Male Muscovy Drakes reach 12 to 15 pounds. Female Muscovy Hens reach 8 to 10 pounds. With wing spans reaching between 5 and 6 feet out stretched. Muscovy "ducks" do not migrate, they can fly but only for short distances and spend most if not all of their time walking where they want to go. When they do fly it is usually up to a tree branch for a perch position. Female Muscovy Hens may "fly" more often than the Drakes, but do not fly away from their familiar roost. Muscovy Hens are natural brooders and will hatch any eggs placed under then when they are brooding. Hatching eggs (average 10-16 eggs in a clutch) generally take approximately 35 days from start of brooding to hatch day. If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck and looks like a duck, then its a duck. Right? But what about the Muscovy. They may look like a duck and walk like one, but they do not vocalize the way a duck would. They hiss and the females can make a grunt kind of sound but the Muscovy "duck" does not quack. This being said, Muscovy "ducks" are not in fact ducks at all. They are a water fowl species all of their own.
With a leaner meat than a traditional "duck", which are generally a fattier bird; you can compare the texture and flavoring to that of veal, beef, goose or bison meat. This makes this bird versatile in ways to prepare it for a meal. You can roast/bake it, slow cook it in a crock, dutch oven over a camp fire, barbecue it and just about any other way you can think of. Makes a great jerky too. If you are someone that does a raw diet for your pets and order from companies that specialize in raw meats for your pets; purchasing the "duck" in your pets order, then you are most likely going to have meat from a Muscovy and not a traditional duck. Muscovy has been said to be more healthy for those who consume it than other meats available today. If you have heard of Barbary Ducks, they are referring the Muscovies, usually they use this name in the culinary scene.
Muscovy "ducks" are great at foraging for their meals. Which makes them great for homesteaders or those who have a backyard flock. Muscovies are great pest controllers as well, which goes in hand with foraging their food. They catch flies, spiders, crickets, grasshoppers, squash beetles, even mosquito, and MORE! So if you are wanting to garden and need to keep some pesky pests under control, then the Muscovy is a great choice. They do eat plants as well so keep that in mind for where you are letting these "ducks" patrol for pests. Muscovies have also been seen taking care of mouse issues. Yes, Muscovies will eat the mice as well so if you want them to take care of your mouse problems, do not put poison down, as you will in turn poison your flock as well.
The Muscovy "ducks" have a mask of caruncles (shown in image above) around their eyes that connects over the top of their bills, between the eyes. The males are more pronounced, while the females are more 'feminine' and subtle. The coloring of the caruncles can be a nude, red, or black. The males (drakes) will also have a low erect crest of head feathers, which will lay flat against the head until they fluff them up when they are upset or feeling frisky in the spring time.
Muscovy "ducks" come in all different colors and patterns. Pattern types for the Muscovy are: pied, barred, ripple, looney and solids. The color types for the Muscovy are: chocolate, blue fawn (also called lilac), black, blue (diluted black), silver (grey), buff, and lavender. The most common is the blue or black pied. Some hatcheries (these "ducks" are not usually easy to find) base their pricing on the colorings, keep this in mind when you are looking to purchase from hatcheries or homesteaders that sell these kind of "ducks".
Shake some tail feathers. Muscovies will shake their tail feathers for several reasons. However, the sexually mature adults will generally use this behavior for mating purposes. Kind of like a dance if you will. We have a Muscovy that shakes its tail feathers in a happy dance at feeding time. She will even shake her tail feathers when we go out to say hello, spending time with the flock. She can walk and shake those tail feathers at the same time, talk about a "ducks" version of walking while chewing gum, ay?! She loves to be pet and spoiled. Easy to handle even if you get them as an adult, just work with them each time you go out for feedings and soon yours will follow you too. Muscovies do not require ponds or large pools of water like traditional ducks do. They do not have the water proof feathers like traditional ducks. They can and will swim and dive, but they don't NEED it. They generally only use pools of water for drinking and bathing.
Muscovy "ducks" are originally native to Mexico, Central, and South America. Because Muscovies are from these warmer climates, they need help if kept in the
Northern, colder climates. We live in the Northern United States and so during the winter we need to keep them off the snow and away from standing water to prevent them from freezing to death or freezing to the ground. It is wise to provide them a shed kind of shelter with heat source such as a heat lamp in the middle of the shelter space. Also be sure to provide lots of straw, layering it up over the winter will also help you get that compost going.
Today small wild and feral breeding populations have established themselves in the United States. Theses flocks are particularly located in Florida and the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas; and in many other parts of North America, including southern Canada. Feral Muscovy "ducks" can also be found in New Zealand, Australia, and in parts of Europe. In the southern United States that have these wild and feral flocks, they have dubbed them a nuisance; encouraging the hunting and removal of these birds. Some online sources that sell live adult Muscovies actually catch them around spring time or over the winter and then ship them in breeding pairs across the United States. Others may catch them and use them to fill their freezers, letting the adults breed and then grow the "ducklings" to butcher age. It is said that feral and wild Muscovies cannot be tamed for use in programs such as 4H.
Our children take part in local 4H programs and are going to bring this breed into the arena for showmanship projects, in our county. They will be doing a breeding project with them next year. This breed is not on any list for being ineligible (your 4H may have a varied rule on this breed) for showing that we are presently aware of. Our children have started to share and education others in our community about these amazing birds. The 4H judges for this years fair are looking forward to having their first set of Muscovies in the ring for judging. Which also means that they are all doing their homework about this breed as well if they arent familiar with this fowl.
So with all of this information, do you feel that the Muscovy is a duck or is not a duck? Personally, I'm going with Not. Once again, the saying, 'if it talks like, looks like, and walks like' comes to mind. Although the Muscovy may walk like a duck, and look like a kind of duck, it most definitely does not talk like one. Even Donald Duck quacks. We love hearing from you, feel free to leave a comment, shoot us an email or stop by our social media pages. The links for our social media pages (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube and more) are found at the bottom of every page.
We hope that this blog was informative for you. This blog article is meant as a tool to give you some helpful information on Muscovy "ducks". There is so much more information about these birds than we have here. Thank you for reading this blog article. We hope to see you around more blog articles and our social pages.