Farm Friend Friday #4 -The Muscovy

If you are like me, it’s likely you’ve never heard of a Muscovy duck. When I set out to purchase my first farm critters at Verde, I knew I wanted a few ducks and some chickens, but I knew nothing about the myriad of choices awaiting me.  Three-years ago, I simply thought ducks were...ducks. I have since learned differently.

I visited a farmer who lives “out Wayne,” in Wayne County. “Out Wayne” means it’s a drive from Huntington--but I digress. Anyway, I always love visiting this little farm and looking at the different animals. The Wayne farmer primarily sells chickens, ducks and rabbits. I was looking for chickens and ducks on my first trip. What I found were muscovies.

I saw these large “ducks” with varied colors and big red masks on their faces with warty growths, cute right? I didn’t think so the first time I saw them. Honestly, I was a little frightened by them because they looked and sounded very Darth Vaderesque--especially the breathing. Is that James Earl Jones or a muscovy? "These are muscovy ducks,” the farmer said.  “They’re great for farms, eat a lot of flies and are quack-less." Hmm, quack-less ducks that eat flies? It has to be a good thing.

I brought home three muscovies that day. Two of them were black and white pied, and one was grey and white pied. At the time, they were “juvies” or juveniles because they were in between the duckling and adult bird stages. None of the three had the red mask either. I later learned those develop in adulthood. Once I got home, I did some research on the muscovy and after three years of raising them, we truly love these interesting birds. So, here is the low down...

1. Muscovies are not really ducks at all. Of course they look like ducks, but they don’t sound like ducks. According to conventional wisdom, then, these webbed footed, water loving, waddling walking creatures were not ducks. In order to be a duck, you have to look and sound like a duck, right? These birds are tree perching waterfowl that come from South America.

2. The red masks on their faces are called caruncles. At first they seem bizarre but once you get to know your muscovies, you fall in love with those beautiful red masks.

3. They really don’t quack. They make a puffing type sound and it’s not a loud sound at all. Sometimes they squeak. It’s actually quite pleasant and sweet.

4. They forage for most of their food and eat a large number of flies daily. Farm studies have repeatedly shown they can reduce the fly population by 80 to 90 percent. It’s fun to watch them eating, the way they move their heads to catch flies on the wing is quite funny.

5. Muscovy are hardy birds and disease resistant and require little effort to keep them. We feed them a little chicken scratch in the morning and evening and they do the rest. It’s funny to watch them come running to the barn porch at the sound of the cowbell, which means it’s feeding time.  Suddenly, the farmer appears from the barn holding his feeding scoop and sometimes they’re so excited they meet the feed in the air as it’s falling from the scoop. It’s as if the farmer is a maestro and they are  an extremely captivated audience waiting for the music to begin.

Farmer and Shep are up on the porch

6. Male muscovies are called drakes and girls are called ducks--some call them hens.

7. It’s good to raise them with shelter. They are cold hardy, but because of predators and extremely low temperatures, it’s best for them to have a safe haven at night. I can tell you this is sometimes difficult because once they find water and outside roosting, they don’t like to come in.

8. They like to roost. Every evening, just like our chickens although maybe a little later, they fly to their roosts for the night. Some will stay on the pond, but most prefer a roost on our fence, bear cage or rock wall.

9. Muscovy mothers are wonderful and systematically teach their babies to clean their down, eat and most importantly, swim. There is nothing cuter than a mama and babies walking to the pond for the first swimming lesson. I cried when I saw it. And as if they weren’t wonderful enough, muscovy ducks are often used to sit on chicken eggs, and are also able to raise baby chicks, too.

10. Daddy’s are very involved in raising their young. It is a rare sight to see mama and her ducklings out wandering around without the male drake supervising and ensuring safety. He usually waddles along the perimeter and herds his ducklings wherever they need to go.

Class is in session

So, what can be better than a quack-less duck that eats most of your flies and needs very little care from you? I can’t think of a thing.

We are doing a post next week to follow up on the great questions you asked about peafowl. Stay tuned.

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Welcome to our fourth Farm Friend Friday (FFF). We are so excited to have you join the party and visit the wonderful posts shared here. Spread the word, and feel free to copy the code below so you can post the entire list of linkies to your post, as well as ours--which makes this a blog “hop.” I would love to see us get 75 farm lovers to join us for our next FFF, March 3. Simply click below and follow the steps. Be sure to visit the partygoers and leave them comments so they know you stopped by to see them.

Let the farm fun begin...