HansonFan
In the Brooder
Hey Y'all -
I've often found myself reading these forums as I've begun my adventures with poultry, so I finally decided to join to try and find an answer to my question.
My muscovy 'hen' has not yet laid any eggs that I'm aware of. She is definitely a female, as she is smaller, smaller legs/feet than the male and she does peep/coo while the male just makes his weird throat noises.
The ducks are tame but are free range and the female goes off somewhere during late night/early morning hours and returns to the yard around 8am. Once she returns, she remains in the yard all day and all evening. I usually peek into the yard around 10pm and she's always curled up with the male on my patio.
The ducks are almost a year old already. We had no idea on sex when I initially got them, so I ended up with 3 males and only 1 female! It was pretty crazy over the last month, until two of the males were found dead in the morning (no torn skin or missing feathers, just broken necks). So I'm down to one male and one female. The female had been mated numerous time by all three males, and plenty of times by just the one male after I lost the other two.
Mating was very intense for almost the entire month of May, and now it's June 2nd and I don't see them mating anymore at all. There don't seem to be any signs of nesting or egg laying.
Trying to think of what other information may be helpful?
We're in Northern Wisconsin and had a fairly warm (nights around 30F /days 50F) season Feb - May and lots of rain in April/May. Now it's been warmer for a week or so, nights in the 40F and days up to 75F.
I'm just curious about when she'll start laying, I was hoping for a brood of ducklings to help even out my male/female ratios; to increase egg production for future egg collecting; and possible harvesting of a portion of them for eating.
Would love to hear your thoughts, thanks in advance. =)
I've often found myself reading these forums as I've begun my adventures with poultry, so I finally decided to join to try and find an answer to my question.
My muscovy 'hen' has not yet laid any eggs that I'm aware of. She is definitely a female, as she is smaller, smaller legs/feet than the male and she does peep/coo while the male just makes his weird throat noises.
The ducks are tame but are free range and the female goes off somewhere during late night/early morning hours and returns to the yard around 8am. Once she returns, she remains in the yard all day and all evening. I usually peek into the yard around 10pm and she's always curled up with the male on my patio.
The ducks are almost a year old already. We had no idea on sex when I initially got them, so I ended up with 3 males and only 1 female! It was pretty crazy over the last month, until two of the males were found dead in the morning (no torn skin or missing feathers, just broken necks). So I'm down to one male and one female. The female had been mated numerous time by all three males, and plenty of times by just the one male after I lost the other two.
Mating was very intense for almost the entire month of May, and now it's June 2nd and I don't see them mating anymore at all. There don't seem to be any signs of nesting or egg laying.
Trying to think of what other information may be helpful?
We're in Northern Wisconsin and had a fairly warm (nights around 30F /days 50F) season Feb - May and lots of rain in April/May. Now it's been warmer for a week or so, nights in the 40F and days up to 75F.
I'm just curious about when she'll start laying, I was hoping for a brood of ducklings to help even out my male/female ratios; to increase egg production for future egg collecting; and possible harvesting of a portion of them for eating.
Would love to hear your thoughts, thanks in advance. =)
