Muscovy

i am the proud owner of two muscovies, one male and one juvenile female... i am hoping to get more soon. the female is the most tame animal i have ever met. she will eat out of your hand, and sit in your lap. she makes a wide variety of quiet, sweet noises. my drake, cyclone, is very sweet and will stand in my lap, without food or treats to bribe him. he will 'talk' to me, huffing when i bring him treats. i think that muscovies are overall great birds and a great pet! (the drake was free as a gift. i don't remember how much the duck was, but she was well worth it!)

We have had Muscovies for several years, and have had a very good experience. While the males do "hiss", it's the Muscovy equivalent of a "quack". They are very quiet ducks and very laid back. Ours are friendly, and will follow us around, Most eat out of my hand and one female trills to me whenever I'm around. They are good around other breeds - ours share a pasture with chickens and Welsh Harlequins and there are never squabbles (at least, not with the ducks!).

They are good foragers, and will "clean" up a yard of bugs, slugs and snails. They eat mosquitoes too. They eat a variety or weeds and can easily forage for most of their food in the spring/summer/fall months, requiring supplemental food only in winter (easy, cheap keepers). I do bring them "treats in the afternoons, to keep them friendly! They require little housing, even here in Washington state, they prefer to be outdoors most of the time. We do not shut ours in at night, we let them choose where they go. They are very cold hardy.

Babies can be tamed very easily. I hand tame babies in the spring to sell as pets. After they hatch, they are brought into the house for a few days for "taming". They are taken for walks outside, to show them "food" and "bugs". The babies come when called and will accept other pets (like rabbits, dogs and cats) as buddies.

They lay lots of eggs, and make good mommas, sometimes even sharing duties with each other. I don't clip wings, and even though capable of flight, ours never bother leaving. When one "accidentally" gets out of the pasture, it tries really hard to get back "in".

They also are fast growers, and produce big meaty birds in a few months. The meat is very lean and exceptionally tasty. Some people compare it to lean veal or ham, although I thinks it's much richer flavoured. We never have a problem selling our meat birds, or our baby "pet" birds (all our babies are called Henry).

We have a steady customer base, and we have a freezer full of meat. This is our first choice for a duck breed (The Welsh Harlequin is our second choice).

Our birds sell as follows
hand tamed babies - 1 week old $10
females - 4-6 months $15/20
Males - 4-6 months $25/35

Used to have them but got rid of them and now I'm gonna get back into them.They are better than any other duck and they would make a great meat bird.Liked them way more than my Pekins and Campbells.As they can keep their numbers up when the others can't.

Got mine by accident . . . long story. Can't imagine life without them at this point lol.
I have a pair, and they are smart, funny, and have great personalities. My drake is HUGE. They are also very quiet. Beautiful animals.

I bought my first pair of young muscovies last spring as babies. I had always thought they were ugly but wanted to try them. The only other ducks I have right now are runners and compared with them my muscovies are the best. They get along with but don't really mingle with my other fowl. They may think they are cats, they eat with the cats and spend a lot of time on the porch with them. I can't get over how friendly they are. The female wags her tail and greets me every time I leave the house, her "man" keeps a good eye on her and although very protective of her is also friendly. I don't need any more animals and have more eggs than I can use so am not really concerned about her nesting abilities, but for a friendly bird to have around these are my first choice.

I love my 11 muscovies. We have chocolates, blacks, blues, whites, and a lilac. They are super calm and friendly. They like to forage and can fend for themself better than other duck breeds. My favorite duck breed.

I have Four Muscovies they are my babies and if you are thinking of getting them do it they will be the best thing that has ever happened you may not like them but i do they mine do fly alot but i love to watch them fly

When I first found out abotu muscovies I couldnt believe they were a duck! After doing more reasearch I found a guy nearby that sold some ducklings. So I bought 2 and they have grown up to be the biggest (and best) ducks I have owned. All of my other ducks are not as gentle and dont want to be around me, but my muscovies will walk right up next to me and look at me with that "Give me food look". When they first started flying I was very surprised, becase I thought they were to big to fly. Well I guess tey dont really "Fly" they fly "Jump" I guess. They cant sustain a flight for longer than 10 seconds. The only downfall to them is how they break my netting over my coop because of their weight.

Otherwise they are a great, weird looking breed!

I was a little skeptical about getting this breed, because I didn't think they were the most attractive, but after losing some of my other ducks, I went ahead and picked up 4 of these. They were GORGEOUS! Unless they are males, the red bumps don't even really show up that badly, their face just looks like a chicken otherwise. But these were by far our best ducks, they loved to eat the bugs, we had WAY less after getting these guys, even though we already had 6 mallard breeds. They lay pretty well, and broody, and can take care of themselves. They can fly away from predators, but they also get out of their cage easier because of that. Anyways, I loved these! They ended up being the most friendly too, even though we got them a lot older than we got the other ones. Or maybe they just couldn't run away as fast??

Overall Muscovy ducks are worth the while. They are very compassionate, and friendly. They wag their tails like dogs and great you every time they see you. They hiss not quack. Perfect duck for the city! They have very sharp claws and love to perch. Once you gain your Muscovy's trust the bond is very strong. They are great hatchers and mama's! I highly recommend them!

Great birds, they do well in my climate and the only main con for me is low egg production. A great hen will produce 90 eggs a year here. Also, pay attention to where the hens have decided to lay their eggs, you don't want them to go broody out in the woods and then get killed by a predator. Another possible con is they are flighty and hard to handle if they are not tamed. Also, don't let a chicken mother a single duckling, I let a silkie mother one Muscovy duckling and 1 year later he thinks he is a chicken and tries to breed with the chickens, fight with the roosters, and he pays no attention to the Muscovy hens or drakes.

These are my best ducks and are great mothers, very sweet, have beautiful babies

They are amazing animals. I leave mine outside and feed them a mix of corn, wheat, sunflower seeds, milo, and oats. They are beutiful ducks and are super quiet and alert. Cold hardy and can fly fairly well. I'm giving this review because they are amazing!
FIVE STARS

My Muscovy is a really nice bird. She is currently sitting on some eggs, and will hopefully hatch some soon. She takes good care of her ducklings, and protects her eggs. She tends to stay around the barn and doesn't wander to far, but she doesn't stay with the other ducks. Sometimes this is good, and other times it isn't. One bad thing is that she is very messy, although I suppose most ducks are anyways. She is nice to look at and easy to catch in the pen. When she is out free ranging, not so much. She is timid, along with my other ducks, and is scared of lot's of things. This is good and bad, as it protects her ducklings, but I can't seem to tame her. Other than those few things, she is really nice.

Our girls are very kind - love eating out of your hand. They are gentle and come when called! A very quiet breed. They are great eaters! They will snatch bugs right out of the air. They devour the tadpoles and I have seen them swallow a frog whole! We have had a great experience with them and are hoping to find more!

The Duck Test: If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
This may be true for most cases, but what about the Muscovy?


At my farm, the most important animal is the turkey. We started raising Royal Palm turkeys, then got some "Mini Royal Palms" (Brahmas), then, lastly, added some "Water Turkeys" (Muscovies). So you can image that I think that the "Water Turkeys" are very beautiful because of their caruncles. I was told by many people not to get Muscovies because they are very aggressive, but over the 18 years I've been around ducks, every Muscovy I've met or owned has always been very nice and loved attention.
Another thing to note is that Muscovies do not quack (another plus!) and are very quiet. They "dance" around when they walk by twerking their tails and bobbing their heads (they literally are the natural party animal) When they want to communicate, they whistle, hiss and do a little "chatter" sound. Throughout the day, my breeding ducks will all get together and have several "clubbing" sessions, dance together and that is as loud as they get when they all hiss and chatter together (normally this is at the pool). We like to hear our turkeys gobble and chuck-chuck-chuck to each other, our chickens when they lay an egg, the roosters when there is a predator and that is about it. A quiet yard creates happy neighbors (even if you live in the country like I do, you should always be considerate of your neighbors and Muscovies are great at that).
The best thing to note is that, although these ducks love water, you will not see them in it a whole lot! We have a swimming pool specifically just for the animals to take a dip in on hot days. They will take baths in the pool once or twice a day, but they do not sit in it all day like other ducks do. For some people, this is a pro, others it is a con. For me, it is a pro because having clean water in the pool is great for all of the chickens, turkeys and other Muscovies. Another pro for my farm is that the ducks are always clean. They love to roost though and can fly pretty well. So trading in dirty water to low roosting poles is a trade I would do any day!
When I first brought them home, they would all lay eggs in the same area. That is three ducks/hens all laying a nest in one area. After a bit, one hen adopted all of the eggs and went broody (it took about a week for all three to get a very sizable nest). Now I have two ducks/hens laying eggs in another area now and the other hen is about to go broody (I believe in about another week or so when they have a few more eggs). So, you can believe how prolific these birds are! They are also amazing mothers and will frequently adopt abandoned eggs or nests that they find (like I have one that is trying to go broody on a Sebright's nest she found with six eggs in it and another that tries to adopt turkey eggs that she find laying in the yard). My ratios right now is one drake to three hens and my fertility rate is 100% (this year I have not had a single infertile egg). I would say one drake to every five ducks/hens would be good. And the drakes are a little meaner when doing the deed. They will chase after the female, grab her by the neck then proceed. When they start to miss feathers on the backs of their heads (like when I first got them, they were paired up one to one so a single duck/hen got all of the abuse from him) I know I need more females or to separate the drake.
The only con I could list is that they love to wander around the yard more than the chickens and turkeys. I will go outside and they will be up in the front yard just doing duck things. Of course, this is unacceptable because the road is in the front yard. So containing these ducks may have to be done by certain farms.

Excellent ! They are quiet, easy to tame, lay eggs and raise and hatch them without any help. They are my favorite duck breed out of all I have had !

I'm sharing my review because IMO this is the best bird for the farm out there. Smaller than a goose, but bigger (males) than a chicken. They are silent. They keep the grass short and bug population down so they don't need a lot of feed. They will be the primary bird on the farm next year. They also provide a another meat variety to the chicken, pork, goose, rabbit, turkey and moo.

I'm not looking forward to the next waxing, but its better than a gander and it's gaggle screaming all day long. If you buy geese buy a female, or keep them far from the house if you nap.

The only downfall I see is that they can really fly well, but thats nothing trimming won't resolve. They have claws but I've never been clawed.

Muscovy are great birds to raise. Quiet, good foragers, excellent at bug control, many colors. I raise mine for meat. Their meat is similar to beef, not at all fatty.

Typically (there are differences in every bird of every breed) they are great broodies and great mothers and will sit on a huge number of eggs. In most areas, they are seasonal layers. Right now, I have a hen sitting on 22 eggs (it is her first time going broody) and it is the end of November. I have had a hen hatch out 11 of 14 eggs before and all of the hatchlings survived.

They are a great breed if you don't want the loud quacks of other breeds. Don't get me wrong, they still make noise. When my girls get to whistling you can hear it you just wouldn't think it was a duck.

The males get BIG, some lines get huge.

All muscovy have claws, the breed is a perching duck so they need them to climb and cling to branches.

In my experience, people that say that they are mean birds have raised them as pets and when the hormones start, the bird changes and the cute little duckling turns into a hormone machine. Again, I don't coddle mine. They are treated well but they have a purpose. I don't handle mine but they still will come up to me for food and eat out of my hand.

The hens are protective of their babies, but that is only natural.