Aggressive male muscovy

[Going Quackers]

I do believe there are and i have seen it based on colours, sadly i have way more experience than i would care to with drakes. I have found my blacks to be more aggressive than other colours, now to my original black drake(who has turned chocolate) has settled down not sure whether it's age or the colour change lol but he was a bit of problem, but not so much so to get rid?(kwim?) anyways, my white drake is laid back and docile.

I am watching closely to see what happens with my three youngest black drakes, two were raised in the house(the other with his mama and sister).. as they were premature hatches but have since re-blended back as farm ducks, they reside with what were their clutch mates two sexed buff ducks, i actually saw one trying to mate a buff yesterday and their only 3mths old! Again i have found, my black lines to be quite dominate and sexually charged.

 

[Frank Phinster]

That is interesting. One of my young drakes is black and white, the other one is pure white. The black and white is more bulky and almost bigger than his father and has started to challenge him while the white one is a little smaller and evades any competetion.
Both of them still let themselves get bossed around by the runner drake, though.

If we had more observations of that kind we could actually try to prove that colour might be a factor, but so far it might as well be other reasons.

 

[Shikoba70]

I believe colour makes a big difference to temperament ( there are exceptions due to personality) . Read this link http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/early-canid-domestication-the-farm-fox-experiment/1 . In brief silver foxes were domesticated and as they became tamer they started to change colour and get white markings. Some people think that the domestic Muscovy has changed colour through crossbreeding ( a bit hard being as any crossbreeds are infertile) but domesticating animals actually changes the genetics and produces white or lighter colours which are all linked with what is termed the " tame gene" . It has been seen in many animals. Rats are naturally brown or black- after years of lab breeding they started to get white markings, how else did we end up with different coloured rats? I have seen foxes near me that have strong white markings, they are the ones that scavenge round gardens, the ones in the field have little or no white markings. In australia the wild roos and wallabies were greys and browns. The ones in wildlife parks often throw white (not albino) babies. I saw the inbetween when I visited peoples properties where the roos were kind of wild but tame enough to come up and feed out of peoples hands etc. These roos had white markings. Domestication dilutes colouring and introduces more white. All my white Muscovy are really tame but my dark Muscovy is naturally skittish and is taking far more taming. It is a complex matter and would take pages to explain it all but that is the basics

 

[Going Quackers]

Interesting, i do own a few white scovies, most of them are pretty tame mind you the one is a touch of a fighter lol i have a lot of white in my flock, my most recent duck is a chocolate and white.

This is mabel and her brother, now my March boys are both blue, one quite dark there both quite full on too, but their brother the black and white was worse, i sold him, he didn't work with a multi drake flock, so he went on to be head of his own. People always remark how BIG my scovie drakes are, which i find odd but i do admit they are big boys when i see what others have?? year after year i produce big boys, well filled out by 3-4mths old.

 

[Frank Phinster]

I read the whole thing and I must say that I gained some new input on that matter.

But, following this logic, it would have to mean that black muscovies are less domesticated - closer to the wild type than whites. So, apart from colouration, other traits would have to differ, some phyisical, some behavioural. My white muscovy duck does behave more "wild" than her darker sisters, although I would exclude one because she had a troublesome development that might influence her.
My white duck is lighter and more slender than her sister and flies more often and better. She also likes to perch on the shed's roof or on a tree now and then, her sister followed her once to the roof, but never again.
The father of the muscovy flock ( black and white) is tamer than his sons. While he barely gets excited and has always been this way since he reached aduldhood, both his sons, black and white or purely white, are more frightened of me.
But these are just some isolated observations, more data would be favourable.

 

[Going Quackers]

I think one would have to do extensive records, i am merely going by my own observations, all my ducks fly well, there up top on everything, i have not seen colouring effecting that, i mostly see drakes with differing levels of aggression and sexual prowess, this genetic page has the breakdown of the colouring.

http://www.muscovyduckcentral.com/genetics.html

White being the dominate, i wonder since i don't own a single solid except white (okay i have a solid black duck coming by month end but anyways lol) so perhaps the blending of the colours, results in behaviour and sizing differences??

I am just shooting in the dark here, my newest dark boys are all just slightly over 3mths so there personalities are still pretty little, they barely hiss mind you i was shocked by the ones desire to mate lol he was playing at it though but the youngest i have seen try and i tend to keep my drakes still at least 4mths or older, i don't sell them off that young.

I should add i do have one of these boys that is unusual(for here) where is facial fleshing is black, something not occurring here before.

 

[Frank Phinster]

I actually don't think that my ducks really prove anything - so far, they simply do not support the thesis that whites are generally more domesticated than blacks.

My whites are more slender than the black and whites ( pied) and thus fly better, but with a hatch of five that doesn't prove anything and the combination of weight and colour may be purely coincidental.
I really cannot set up a rule with my observations and that my muscovies generally prefer to stay on the ground may just be their preference while yours like to perch.

To answer that question we would still have to find out whether size and behaviour are actually linked to the colour.

 

[manor]

As I said at the beginning about my black moscovy aggressive behavior. After bringing four more female he is little bette.he is fine with me but not with my husband.because he is the one who built him new house. And he didn't liked his new house because he was brought home when he was 3 weeks he spent 3 months in previous house so obviously he gonna hate that.today he was in his house and when I went close to him he started bobbing his head and trying to tell me something.every few seconds he would hit the ground that means he wants to come out of the house.and as soon as I let him out he would wiggle his tail like a dog.oh I love these animals they are do beautiful.no matter how bad is your day if you spent few minutes with them you feel like you are in heaven.

 

[Hutchins Hens]

WeI have been raising Scovy ducks for 3 years and when one of ours gets "pushy" I carry a squirt bottle full of water and squirt him in the face. This breed does not like water as much as other breeds and this usually cools his jets immediately. You also have too many males. 1 drake per 6 ducks is what I found works best. Before long your drakes will be fighting each other if you don't fix the male to female ratio. They also may see you as another rival for the females. We love this breed. Our drake, Captain Adventure, used to get cranky when his mate died. (Predator fox) but now that he has his pick of 8 girls he's happy as a clam. He likes to be rocked in our laps on the front porch. He plays with our basset hound Susie but make no mistake, he is the king of his domain and will defend it.

 

[bowray]

I have two full white young drakes in my menagerie. I recently traveled to SC to visit my sister and was entertained by the Wild Muscovies of the development that she lives in. This group consists of 10-12 Moscovies and of which 3 are female, 2 Geese one is African one is Touloose, last but not least is a mixed Cayuga. Since these are my first two Muscovy ducks I didn't realize mine were two very large fellas. I decided to purchase some females down there from a breeder and bring them home. One of my males is just as sweet as he ever was, the other went crazy mean in a day. I came home on Monday night and by Today (Wed) he has attacked me 4 times. The first attempt I was sitting in a chair dolling out the garden delights I usually do and out of nowhere he starts nipping my arm, then biting a whole lot harder, when I tried to stop the behavior he climbed up my body like a flash, and as he tried to get over my head I grabbed him roughly and sat him on my lap holding him down so he quit. Each attack since has been when I wasn't paying attention. The lovely ladies I brought home consist of 2 adults, 2 juveniles like my fellas. I don't believe I want to give him up but I do believe I need to show that although I am a woman I am the Albreed flock alpha. My geese are no fools they will cut him off at the pass as well and protect the others. So it looks like we are going to break him of this nastiness or he will make a fine meal for the family by New Years.

My clan consists of the following :
In my front yard (nicely landscaped with my home)
2 Pekin 1M 1F
2 Ruen 1M 1F
These Ducks are older, and were raised together and are separated day/night from everybody else except for the Silkies escaping the larger chickens.
I have in the farm area / Back yard

3- Khaki Campbell 1M / 2F
2- Runner Ducks 1M /1F and a white Ruen mistress
6-Muscovies
2-African Geese juveniles I think 1M / 1F both hand raised by me and they think they are human. I know 1 is a male as the mating Pekins got him fired up and he was hanging out so to speak.
Approx 50 chickens too many breeds to name