The Duck Days of Summer - Part 2

Now for the birds you’ve never seen.

A few months ago we connected with a retiring duck farmer (at one point he raised 700+ birds on his land) and purchased some of his flock. He was liquidating his Muscovies, so we bought 23 birds with the intention of slaughtering most for meat and keeping a few for breeding. The meat is leaner than mallard-descended ducks, but still very good. We lost 5 due to a mystery that is now resolved thanks to an avian expert (which, I will write about another day), butchered 14, and kept 4 females.

Mrs. Little is all-black and looks like the Little described earlier. Mrs. Brown is a beautiful brown and white that reminds me of a Britney Spaniel. Then we kept 2 white and black speckled females, one of who we fondly call Escapy (Esk-uh-pee) because, well, she is capable of escaping from anything or anywhere.  They don’t lay eggs quite yet, but will soon. Instead of quacking, the females trill. It is a beautiful noise—just listen. We will breed them with Little in the future, and hopefully have a self-sustaining meat source that is very low maintenance. They are less socialized than our other birds and are still getting used to the idea that I feed the ducks kitchen scraps off the back porch. They often miss the memo until everything’s been devoured.

Mrs. Brown

Mrs. Little and Friends

The other muscovies... NOM/*tear*
(Seared duck breast on a bed of sweet potatoes & chanterelles with a cherry balsamic reduction)

Our last 5 ducks came around Easter as day-olds. They are all females and all Khaki Campbells. As an experiment, we didn’t “hand-raise” these babies and instead put them with the other ducks early on. They enjoy following around any brown duck (Golden or Khaki Campbell) to the water, food, or foraging, but particularly love cuddling close to Mama Duck. They gather outside her nestbox during the day and attempt to guard her against anything that comes near. When they are outside, they can be found stumbling as they run down the hill and tripping over their long legs. They are as uncoordinated as toddlers and as awkward as teenagers. Eventually, they will lay eggs too.

The babies following Goldie

And then there is Edgar (blind and/or brave duck). He's not new, as you may remember. but he deserves his own spotlight. He’s still blind. He’s still a little neurotic. Yes, he still walks in circles and can’t get in and out of the duck house on his own, but he is lovely all the same. When Ms. Duck spent so long rehabilitating her leg this winter, Edgar joined her to make sure she wasn’t lonely. When the baby Khakis got introduced to the adult ducks, Edgar spent the first week with them inside their house helping them get acclimated. And when the little girls from down the street desperately want to hold and pet a duck, Edgar is the guy for the job.  

 

Just keep spinning, just keep spinning

 

And those, friends, are our 25 ducks/ducklings. We’ll let you know if Mama Duck hatches her first clutch next month and make sure we post pictures more regularly now that the weather is nice. J

TTFN!