Muscovy Ducks

When we bought our current farm 2 years ago my husband was excited to get ducks. We had chickens when we moved here, but at our previous home we only had a 1-acre parcel and it had a beautiful koi pond. We were much too practical to invest in koi fish, but also knew ducks would destroy the koi pond, negativity affecting our resale value.

Our first ducks here were a mix of Pekin and Indian Runner ducks, which I traded a friend for. My husband found the Ancona breed and immediately decided we needed some of those as well, so we got a dozen or so ducklings. We eventually sold the Pekin and Indian Runner ducks once the Anconas started laying. I was incubating and selling chicks and ducklings and we wanted to simplify our duck breeds.

Fast forward to last May (2017). We visited friends and were admiring their unique ducks. They told us the previous year someone had given them several ducklings and they had multiplied to well over 60 without any effort on their part. This amazed me and I had to learn more about them. After much discussion they sent us home with a dozen Muscovy ducklings to get us started.

We have learned that Muscovy ducks are decent layers, excellent for meat, great foragers, pretty self-sufficient, and multiply easily with zero effort. What an excellent sustainable addition to our farm!

Last week one of the kids came in and said, "Mom! We found a nest of probably 20 duck eggs hidden and covered in feathers!" I told them to let them be and I bet the mom would be back to sit on them. When we went out for night chores we peaked and saw the mama all cozy sitting on her clutch of eggs. So every time we go out for chores we peak and anxiously await the day when ducklings emerge.

We are so excited about these Muscovy ducks and are anxious to see how many ducklings they hatch out this year for us!

@papa-pepper wrote a post yesterday about having Muscovy ducks too. He seems to agree that they are a good homestead addition.

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