Tomorrow I'll be picking up some adult Muscovies from a farm where the poor guy is rehoming all his ducks, and Toulouse geese, due to dog attacks. He can't get the police to do anything and the dog owners apparently don't care either. So rather than see his animals molested and killed, he's giving them away.
I've been wanting to get Muscovies this year, so I'm glad to be able to help. I was figuring on starting with ducklings though!
Anyone else have Muscovies? How do they integrate with other poultry like chickens and guineas?
Getting some Muscovies
A friend of my DH has Muscovies. They are with his chickens and seem to get along fine. They are great at hatching out the eggs. Not sure on integrating adult birds though.
Well I'm glad for you, but, gotta tell ya, I'd be shooting some neighbors dogs. If that did not work, I'd be shooting the neighbors. Two years ago my neighbor had a large heard of cattle, two of the yearlings were rogue and they kept getting out and constantly trampling my garden. This went on for about three months. I talked with the owner and he was always drinking, and could not care less. I took pic's and called my local council woman. She came out, saw the damage, took one look at me and said next time shoot the cattle. I did exactly that and called a mobile butchering outfit and filled my freezer. He took me to court, he lost the case. Two months later all of his cattle were gone. No more problem. You always have a right to protect your property and animals. Haystack.
Yeah, but check the law... my neighbor shot a dog that had been eating his chickens and turned out the dog belonged to some humaniac neighbor woman who called the state police on him. Officer was very kind, said he would have done the same thing, but the wiggle in the law here is the dog has to be IN THE ACT when you shoot it. As my neighbor had already lost a dozen hens to this dog, had seen it kill, knew which dog it was, he wasn't going to wait til he caught it again, he just shot it as soon as it stepped on his land.
Lady took it to the DA, it could potentially be a felony conviction, my friend could lose his job as a nurse anesthetist, lose his ability to support his family, and he's been vilified in the local paper. The humaniac lady rants and raves about the cruelty to her 'family pet' that she didn't keep home, had left to fend for itself over the weekend while she was out of town... but does the paper portray her as wreckless, cruel to the chickens or irresponsible? OOOOOh NOOOOoooo.
Local farmers and ranchers wrote in and detailed the devastation wrought by roaming dogs which attack chickens, sheep, goats, calves... sometimes killing, but more often mauling and maiming, leaving them standing but gutted.
Next time my friend has to shoot a chicken-killing dog, he says he's going to stuff chicken feathers in its mouth.
Just know the particular wiggle in your laws and act accordingly...
Jay
We have the same laws in place here. The animal has to be commiting the act. And what makes it double hard here, the dog officer gets mad even when the dog is in the act; luckily the police have a completely different outlook. Even with a dog covered in blood and a poor ram w/ his back-end torn apart isn't good enough for her.
Sorry still sticks in my craw...
Mine too..}=(
Found out more of the story today. The dog owner has a kennel where he breeds all kinds of dogs, both pure and cross breds. When we were there today we could hear the dogs barking so they aren't that far away. The police did tell this guy he could shoot the dogs if they came onto his property, but he's gone all day, and that's when the dogs get out and do their damage.
In any event, we ended up taking 7 Muscovy ducks. Three males and four females. They are gorgeous birds. I had no idea how big the males really get. I mean, I'd read they can get up to 15 lbs, but I hadn't translated in my mind what that would look like. We got home after dark, so we put them in a big wire dog crate on our enclosed front porch for the night. I'll get some pictures tomorrow.
Good you got the birds! Looking forward to the pics. =0)
Gallesfarm, sounds like you are going to be a great home for these ducks!! I know you wanted babies but I hope you can hatch some of your own eggs eventually and have the little fluffy babies!! I hope you post pictures so I can drool on my computer. hehehe
If what they say about their breeding and mothering abilities are true, we will be overrun with ducks! :) We may not have to raise broiler chickens anymore, as we'll have plenty of duck meat.
So, here are some pics, starting with this one. I took these while they were still in the crate on our front porch. The sun was shining in causing some overexposed areas in some pictures, but all in all, not too bad.
Another group shot. We have some nice chocolate and blue color birds here (if anyone knows the color names better, let me know).
More of a closeup of some heads.
One of the drakes.
One of the ducks.
Another of the ducks. We have three drakes and four ducks total. Of course I have no idea how inter-related they all are, but I've decided not to worry about it. Several are missing toenails and I don't know if they will grow back or not. Depends on whether the nail beds were damaged. I don't know how they lost their nails to begin with. But they all appear healthy otherwise. Good condition and good feathers.
We moved them out to the poultry pen today. I made a small shelter for them out of pallets, boards, tarp, baling twine, and woven wire fencing. It's really sad looking, but only temporary. It's called "making do with what you have lying around". :-)
The roosters and guinea hens freaked out of course when we started taking them out there. But they've settled down now.
I'll bet they'll appreciate not being dog bait so much that they'll lay passles of eggs and hatch bevies of babies... better line up your paraffin source. =oD
Jay
The colors are great!! They dont even look like the same type of ducks!! So they are great breeders? ught oh...BABIES!!!!!!!!!!
I think the females are mixed as they do not seem to have the red ring around the eye that female muscovies have
Nice looking ducks! Hey, galles, maybe you can use them to hatch out some chicks for ya.
Those are young females, so the red is still developing.
This weeked was beautiful spring-like weather, and now it is snowing!
We had 65 for the high on Sat and Sun. Now it's 38* and dropping w/ snow for this evening! Gotta love spring, eh. .....not!