you are sending me down a rabbit hole. How many eggs do you typically get from muscovy? I just read that they will bread multiple times a year depending on climate.
I'm tempted to get rid of my chickens (I have a small back yard and only 6 chickens) and switch to muscovy ducks and rig something up for them.
Muscovies are terrible birds for egg laying.
If you want eggs to eat, keep the chickens.
They dont lay many eggs in a year. I cant give you a number though lol. They will hatch out anything. They are fantastic mothers.
Because of this they make perfect meat birds.
As in im never raising another meat chicken intentionally again, kind of "perfect meat birds."
Ive decided after my experience this year, im not fooling with meat chickens any more. The ducks are just outright better.
These things are quiet, they dont tear up stuff as much, I dont have to manage anything for the hen that hatches the ducklings, and it *seems* like I dont have to rush to harvest them like meat chickens.
The males are massive birds, im still trying to figure out the best time to harvest them but the ~5 month old I smoked for Thanksgiving was really good.
I want to figure out simpler ways to Cook them but thats all trial and error stuff.
They're adorably cute nasty little creatures. You will get pooped on. They will amazingly make mud pits out of the most well managed deep litter bed.
Fresh water troughs? Give it 45 min *tops*.
Is that water there on the ground? New beak diggy hole spot.
Those cute duck flappy feat? Talons. Big ones.
Thats about the entirety of their negatives, that ive encountered in my short time with them.
I had heard on a podcast that when you handle them to wear something like welders gloves because of the spurs. The one in the pic had large spurs for sure lol.
Maybe I'll keep a few chickens for eggs and get a couple muscovies to try out with them. I'll have to get one of those kiddie pools for them. I was reading they like to roost and sleep on the ground. Not sure how I'm going to approach this lol
