ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS > FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE
Muscovey drake -- the winner
Angi_H:
Yes Cindi if the ducks are all running together they will interbreed. If you want pure you will need to seperate. If your Runners are crossed the male runners are very how should I put it lightly HORNEY LITTLE THINGS and they will even try to breed the chickens if they are in the same pen. They will even try to go after Geese and Turkeys. Runner and Runner cross males always needs to have no more then 1 drake per 67 to 8 hens and yes they can cover that many. You want to increase fertality just change there pool or water pan they swim in to clean water every day. They mate like a mad man after that. The Drakes will even go after a hen sitting on eggs or trying to lay an egg because it is an easy lay. No pun intended. This might show why some of the birds you have have smaller amounts of red around the face. And yes I could see from the pictures of the RUNNER's that if breed to the Muscovey could produce a bird like that. The only thing they would be good for would be the freezer. Muscovey meat is compaired allot to veal with the light non greasy taste and very tender. It is the other Red meat. Also having no red in the face is not something you want to keep for breeding as it is a breed falt if they were pure. The only ones that have very little red are the wild south american breeds. You should look at that site I put in there is some extreemes to the red face that is Show Quality then there is breeder Quaility. I am looking into getting back into them. I am wanting blue and Barred. Might get out of the runners as well but I have to change over slowly as I have people that want the eggs. So as I get stock back I will sale runners off. You should look all over feather source They have all of the breeds and types out there. And what is good and what is bad for a certain breed. I would look at either hatching a new Drake out of bought eggs or trying to find a young drake for sale you need to add new blood every couple of years anyway otherwise you start getting deformities. Again I am sorry I really did not want to say anything but when you know the breed because you used to show and breed them and you see something that doesn't look right well. I just dont want you to be mad at me I am not trying to hurt your feelings I am just trying to help you.
Angi
Angi
JP:
[quote author=Angi
> Yes Cindi if the ducks are all running together they will interbreed. If you want pure you will need to seperate. If your Runners are crossed the male runners are very how should I put it lightly HORNEY LITTLE THINGS and they will even try to breed the chickens if they are in the same pen. They will even try to go after Geese and Turkeys. Runner and Runner cross males always needs to have no more then 1 drake per 67 to 8 hens and yes they can cover that many. You want to increase fertality just change there pool or water pan they swim in to clean water every day. They mate like a mad man after that. The Drakes will even go after a hen sitting on eggs or trying to lay an egg because it is an easy lay. No pun intended.
JP > watch out for the horny drakes!!!! :-D :-D :-D
> ... Again I am sorry I really did not want to say anything but when you know the breed because you used to show and breed them and you see something that doesn't look right well. I just dont want you to be mad at me I am not trying to hurt your feelings I am just trying to help you.
Angi
JP > Angi, I believe Cindi appreciates your experience and your suggestions. Your information is good and helpful. she stated in an earlier post a many thanks for your input. Hope it was ok to speak on your behalf Cindi. Hope everyone has a nice day, a cold front is coming to us tonight, yeah!!!
Sincerely, JP
Cindi:
JP, speak for me any ol' time that your lil' heart desires, it is all good.
So, Angi, JP is right, please correct me anytime you desire.
Brian, I love your input too. I am going to order that book from McMurray hatchery on breeding chickens that you said was good, it is on my list and I will get on it.
I have absolutely zero interest in ever showing any of my birds, that is not my gig, but I don't want crossbreeds by any means. That is not my gig.
Yes, the Indian Runner drake was (not pardon my expression), and horny little thing. I would see him chasing all the girls around, and he could run fast. My Sister and I used to laugh at him, oh brother, eh, go figure. So a runner can service over 50 birds, eeeeks!!!!! Now that is one fast little dude!!!!
So, clean water makes them even more interested in chasing the girls eh? That would actually make really good sense. Because we would clean the duck/chicken water baths (an old bathtub and a kiddies swimming pool frequently). The ducks really loved to have clean water and it was wonderful to watch how much they appreciated this gesture. We are on city water and being in a rainforest, rarely a shortage of water. We are metered for our water (ever since the city found out that I operated a nursery, so many years ago, they came and put a water meter in, eeks!!!!).
Now this darn post is going to get lengthy, I hope I don't bore with some mundane thoughts, but these must be expressed.
I was speaking with my Sister about the mule Muscovey yesterday and how he was infertile. Makes 100% sense.
This batch of Muscoveys that this mule drake is a part of was from an incubated group of eggs.
When we bought our incubator, the dude that sold it to us raises Muscovey ducks for sale. He included a dozen Muscovey eggs for incubation as a nice gesture and we used a bunch of ours. I did not realize this until my Sister was telling me this yesterday.
When she incubated the incubator guys eggs and our eggs, she made a mark on his eggs and left ours blank. This totally corroborates what I have read here in this post.
Out of the 12 eggs that he gave us and about 30 that we had put in the incubator of our own, only 8 hatched out, for whatever the reason. Two of ours and 6 of his.
When my Sister was at this incubator guys place, she thought it cool that all his Muscoveys over at his farm looked the same colour and markings. All the ones that we had ever hatched out under ducks previously were so diversified in colour. (gotta be that blasted horny old peckertoad Indian Runner).
This group of Muscoveys that are now 2 1-/2 months old (approximately), all the drakes look very much identical, except that pretty one with the black face, that is obviously no good for anything else other than the pot. They are still young, but they are big.
That would be why the drakes all look so similar, these are the drakes that hatched from the incubator guy's eggs that he gave us. that would mean that one of the 3 ducks that hatched out from this dudes eggs would be one of ours too, I am thinking that it would be the brownish one, the other two are rather close looking to the drakes.
All this incubator guy raises is Muscovey ducks, so I believe that we would have a purebred Muscovey drake, so that is good.
Yes, this newbie to the genetic stuff with the birds has so much yet to learn, but that is OK, I am on that quest for knowledge. Have a wonderful, great day. Cindi
Angi_H:
No it was ment one drake to 6 to 8 hens (ducks), And if you are going to mix eggs from other sources just go and buy colored zip ties. Mark the eggs from where they are and pick a color. Now unless you can seperate the hatching eggs into a different place you will have to watch closely on hatch day and those chicks/ducklings that hatch out of the marked eggs place a colored zip tie on there leg loose but not loose enough that they will slip off. Keep a watch on it as they grow and when it starts to get tight place a new on on there leg loose but not so loose as they will slip off. Keep doing that till they finnish growing and you can place a leg band on them or cull them out if you dont want to keep them. But you will never loose track on which chicks/ducks came from which eggs. I do that with eggs I get from other sources. Or in my runner eggs to keep colors seperate and they are a whole bunch cheaper then a bunch of different size leg bands. And work just as well. Like you can mark one color for Sire and one for dam and one color for year. There is endless possabilitys. They other thing you can do is go out and buy you a toe punch. And when those chicks/ducks hatch you can punch through one of the toe webs to mark which egg they came from. There are so many fifferent patterns you can use for marking that way as well.
Angi
Cindi:
Angi, that is some good and useful information. Keeping records on everything is such a good idea and should always be done. About punching a hole in the web, would a leather punch work? I would imagine so. I have a leather punch with several different sized holes (of course). Does this cause any pain to the critter? Curious here. Have a great and best day. Cindi
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version