Muscovy Duck-apalooza

We started with Muscovy ducks last summer - got 6 ducklings from one of our local friends (not bad at $3 each, half the mail order price without the shipping!). Once they differentiated into drakes and hens, we kept one male and two females overwinter. The other three were packed into the freezer for winter and very careful consumption!

One of the hens became the roast duck centerpiece of Carol's birthday (recipe and pic here).

Now, we are one year into our duck project and here are the things we have learned.

1. Muscovy will sit chicken eggs, but because she will set 20-30 eggs in 3-5 layers, chicken eggs must be near the top or the hen will inadvertently suffocate the newly hatched chicks.
2. Muscovy ducklings are small enough to easily move through 4-inch goat fencing all the way up until 8 weeks old. Mom hen flies over the fence and the ducklings slip through it to follow her.
3. Ducks' poop is very wet - wetter than chickens - and so they need more clean bedding when they stay indoors. They actually will be sitting then stand to poop and sit down just slightly ahead of where they pooped.
4. Ducks are very messy with water - especially problematic with the hen and her 5 ducklings that live with the goats. Goats do NOT like dirty water at all. Ducks say, "Feh, water schmater."
5. Muscovy are pasture trimming monsters - they will eat greens all day long - sometimes they just sit down into it and nibble a circle around themselves.
6. Muscovy do fly - although their wings are not as strong or large as other ducks - but they love to roost! They are treefowl more than waterfowl. This leads to wonderful pictures like this one:

Looking back at 2008

It has been a while since I have found the time to write in the blog – I just don’t make it enough of a priority. As I finished up my bookkeeping from last year, finally updated the goat pages, and was trying to figure out changes for this year I figured I could use the blog to organize my thoughts.

1. Pigs are great tillers and delicious to eat; however, our clever pigs figured out how to escape from the temporary fencing. We think they found a way to dig under the black (uncharged) line of the fence and push the entire fence up. We always checked the charge; I just think one of our girls was extra smart. Anyway, the three pigs took a long walk (for a week) and we had to post signs all over the place. In the end, it was just knowing and calling the farmers in the area that allowed us to get our pigs back.

Moral of the story: pigs are easier to raise in permanently fenced areas that are divided by temp. fencing for rotational grazing.
Future projects: fence in all the pasture areas with permanent fencing.

Unfortunately, until we raise the capital for the fencing we are not going to be raising pigs. We are hoping the tilling and re-seeding that happened last year (see pics here) will be enough to get our pastures in better shape.

2. Turkeys are not the brightest animals. Unfortunately, we experienced heavy predation on our turkeys over the course of a week. We set out traps and the predators disappeared and haven’t come back. As it appeared the turkeys literally went up to the predators and allowed their heads to get pulled off. This is the only explanation, since there was a corner that was completely protected from predators where they could have hidden. All of the dead birds were not found anywhere near the corner.

Moral of the story: wild animals have as much right to eat our animals as us.
Future projects: keep our dogs outside a lot more!

3. Muscovy ducks are awesome! We plan on raising many more of these hardy guys this year. They fend for themselves, do a great job foraging, get along well with the chickens in the winter (since they are sharing the same area), and taste yummy.

4. A good dog is worth its weight in gold. We lost our wonderful Caille this summer right after a canoe camping trip. She had lots of fun while camping, but came home really sick. After three days we had to put her down. It was tough! I had been looking for a third dog for a while and with Caille gone Mira was getting very lonely. I found the dog I was looking for (Cassidy) and she is everything I want in a dog – very loving, smart, willing to work with the animals on the farm, great with the birds (doesn’t ever try to eat them), and willing to learn. This past week she even figured out how to climb onto the top of the barn (what a freak!).

Moral of the story: Caille will be missed!! Although the goats were really good about following us out to the pastures, they weren’t the best at going back home. The birds were very difficult to move without a dog to help.
Future projects: Train Cassidy to herd our animals to make rotational grazing much easier.

5. Rabbits may be our next project… We need to find a way to raise more money on the farm in order to make this a sustainable adventure. At this point we don’t feel like we have the space to expand our goat herd. Once we have a new barn and fence in the pastures this will be our highest priority. It is pretty difficult to make money with chicken, pigs are escape artists, and turkeys like to get their heads cut off. In the end, we think ducks and rabbits are places to expand. Only 2009 will tell us whether this is a good idea.

Moral of the story: it is tough to make money while farming
Future projects: rabbits???

-Carol