They are doing great!! They are 3 weeks, 5 days old today. All of them are still alive and we haven’t had any issues up to this point. We’ve been letting mama take care of everything which is exactly how I was hoping this would go. When I was doing research on the animals we wanted for our future homestead I spent a lot of time looking at breeds. One of the most important factors was reproduction. Do they produce and raise their own young well? I do not want to baby our animals. I firmly believe that results in less hardy animals and more attached caregivers. The goal is organic, healthy food that is raised humanely, sustainably and that is easy on the wallet and our labor.
(This is a male we bought a few months ago with his female friend. I am loving his coloring!)
Having animals that raise their own young is crucial to a sustainable and less labor intensive homestead. Think about it, that duckling that required no work to hatch or raise becomes food. The only cost involved was the feed which you have the opportunity to get creative with. If you had bought that same duckling from a hatchery you would have paid for the duckling, shipping potentially, heating it with a heat lamp (bulb, lamp and electricity), the brooder, bedding for the brooder. As you can see the cost adds up. When you are keeping a hen for eggs anyway it isn’t much extra to feed a drake, especially if you have many hens!
So naturally we went with muscovies. They have excellent reputations for raising young and after this experience I would have to say I completely agree. Iris went broody at 8 months old and has done an amazing job raising her babies. We now have 2 other broody hens who are also about 8 months old! They aren’t laying on nearly as many eggs but we will see if our nesting box adjustment affects the hatch rate. For more info on that see our related posts linked below!
(You can kind of see the one in the front middle, their head looks a bit bigger as does the darker head poking up in the back. Kind of hard to tell at this point.)
It’s looking like we have 2 males, possibly 4 :o! The only way to tell gender with muscovies is the size difference since the males end up being twice the size as the females. The one duckling with the darkest head looks like it might be male, his head seems slightly larger. If he is male it will become more obvious as they grow and then we need to decide what to do with him. The original plan was to eat him but one of Chris’ coworkers is looking to get into ducks so he might end up being sold.
Related Articles:
What Happened with Iris’ 1st Clutch?
1st Babies on the Homestead: Ducklings!!!
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Totally with you on the self-sustaining breeds! We've been trying to find the same self-sufficient animals for our homestead. Like you, we don't want to weaken our stock (and future stock) by babying our babies. It is sometimes a little rough on my city-born heart, but I'm certainly learning! Andrew helps reminds me to think about the long-term goals.
Iris and her brood are such a lovely picture. I love seeing healthy animals being raised the way they are supposed to be raised!
She is extremely protective of them! Apparently it's normal for female muscovies to attack us humans if we are interfering with their babies 😮