Our Muscovey clan that was

[Cindi]

Looking at some pictures, found a really pretty one of the group of Musoveys.  They have got to be the most interesting ducks, so nice and sweet, the hens make a peeping sound, the drakes hiss.  Some of these went into our freezers and some were attacked and killed a couple of months ago in their night time house.  That still shakes me up, won't happen again, I have made darn good sure of that one.

We have 5 Muscovey hens now and one great big beautiful drake (well two, but one is heading off to the Chinese grocer today, they love duck).  Soon we will be having lots of little Muscoveys running around again (well, after the incubation process).  I noticed the other day that the Muscovey eggs had been fertilized, so it is a gathering process, the young hens aren't laying quite yet, so there is only two a day I can gather right now, I will gather them for a week, no longer.  (Unless a rooster is mating with a duck, then the drake has come to maturity).  Love this breed of duck.  Have a beautiful, great and wonderful day, Cindi

[JP]

All I can say to that is, bring on the ducks! :-D ;)  How can you tell when the eggs have been fertilized? Do the drakes place lil' signs on the eggs or what? No really, how do you know?

.....JP

[Cindi]

JP, the rooster sign is the same as the duck sign I guess.  I know most of my eggs when I crack one open has a little red dot (or two) beside the yolk, best way to describe it.  That is the rooster "sign", not one he hangs on the outside of the egg, hee, hee  ;) :)

The other day when I opened up a couple of Muscovey eggs to eat, I noticed the red spot inside these eggs too.  Now, unless the rooosters are doing the ducks, then these eggs are certainly fertilized.  The drake was born on around the middle of October, so that would make him 3-1/2 months old, I guess it is him doing his thing.  I thought he was too young to mate, but it seems otherwise, unless like I said, we have an extra prolific rooster(s).  I can't see that because they have enough hens and I don't know if roosters will go with ducks.  I know the black runner/X drake we had did everything under sun, he was very prolific, that was plain and simply annoying.  So, that is the story around the rooster sign.  Have a great and best wonderful day, Cindi

[Kathyp]

cindi, your rooster-duck thing reminds me of our beagle-duck story.  unfortunately, it's not a pretty story and probably not appropriate for this board.

the duck by itself is a story.  1st it had the run in with the beagle.  we put it in a cage to recover.  this was in s. ca.  we have nasty red ants down there.  the red ants went after the duck.  we saved it again, and it recovered.  one day, my mother was outside yelling for help.  i found her trying to remove the man door from the garage. somehow the duck had gotten it's neck under the door and was stuck with it's head in the garage and body in the yard.  again, we saved it.  this was to much trauma for my mother and the duck was eating all her expensive pond plants anyway.  i gave the duck to a school mate who had others.  the duck flew out of his yard and was eaten by the neighbors german shepard.  RIP. the thing was doomed from day one.

my turn to go OT....  :-)

[thomashton]

I've got a grey drake and hen and a black/green drake and hen (four total) Muscovy. They certainly are quiet when not hissing. I noticed two nights ago some grey on grey action which seemed pretty early to me. We are still socked in with pleny of snow with another foot expected over the next 24 hours. It's snowing now btw. I will probably jsut collect up the duck eggs for my own use until it gets warmer and I let them raise a family.

[Cindi]

Kathy, ha!!!!  you have sent my imagination working overtime now with the duck-beagle story.  Eeeks!!!!  I only dare to imagine what you may have spoken about, if this were not that family oriented forum, hee, hee.  Well, I can just guess, so that is OK.

That poor duck, it sounds like it really had a rough time of life.  I think that it probably was a good end for it, who knows what path it might have travelled down  :evil: :-D :shock:

Thomashton, got any pictures of your Muscoveys, man, I love these birds, they have such the beautiful personalities.  I particularly like the ducks, they are so dainty with their little peeping.  Even when I am checking under them for eggs, they are so gentle they just kind of peep and lightly peck at my hands.  So sweet.  But man, when I was a young woman, now when on earth was that? ooops, we have a nasty hideous drake that was nasty and would bite your calf.  I told this story before, but I will recount briefly.  I got fed up with his antics one day and picked him up by the head and threw him around my head in a circle like a lassoo and flung him far and wide.  He didn't bug me anymore.  I had had enough.  Our drakes are very friendly, they are so used to people that there is not aggression.  Thank goodness, cause I don't think I could pick up one of those suckers nowadays, I think I am shorter than I used to be or something, hee, hee,  :-\ :shock:  Have a wonderful day, Cindi

[Angi_H]

Cindi Your little guy is not old enough. Re spots just happen when a blood vessle breaks when the laying cycle starts up again it can also be genetic for this to happen in the eggs. It does not mean they are fertalized. I have a 8 month old Barred Muscovey drake and he has not even tried with my hen. He still beeps like a baby.  And her eggs are still not fertile. I turned the drake over and checked him out and he is not yet producing the right stuff for it. I would say when your younger gals start laying then he will be fertle. Just like the females wont become to lay till there over a year old.  Blood spots dont mean fertalization. I get that in the pen of ducks that is just for eating eggs. And I have to check the eggs out every now and then to make sure none of them are throwing eggs with blood spots in them by candeling the eggs. If there is one in there I make sure to candle those next several days of eggs to make sure that all os good if not then that hen gets sent to the sale as her eggs will tend to allways show blood spots. It is juts something that happens when the egg goes through the ovaduct. But people wont buy the eggs for eating. And a rooster doing a duck wont make that happen nor will a duck doing a duck make that happen. It just happens.  Just a sign that things are still working out starting back up working again.

Angi
Sorry
Angi

[JP]

So Angi, getting back to my original question, how do you know when an egg has been fertilized?


......JP

[Angi_H]

When you crack the egg and you look at the yellow. The little white spot is where it will get fertalized. All eggs have the little white spot. If they are fertalized they will have a halo around that white spot. I will have to go look on one of the boards that showed how to tell if an egg was fertile. They even changed the yolk color to show how to read the halo around the white fleck on the yolk.  So it would look like a circle around the white dot. with a nice even Ring.


Angi
I will try to find the pictures to show you all.

[Cindi]

Angi, bwaaaaa, you have burst my bubble!!!   :shock: :( ;) :)  I thought that my drake would be good for mating soon, sounds like he won't be a part of the breeding team for awhile.  Rats!!!  Oh well.  I am very, very appreciative of your being very blatent with me, I truly am.  It is so important to understand things and be informed if there is a wrong way of thinking or just not in the know of something.

You say that it would be about a year before the ducks lay, and the same with maturity of the drake.  Well, that is going to be a long time coming.  They were born around the middle of October, so they are just coming up four months old now.  They have a long ways to go.  That is OK, all good things take time.

Anyways, Angi, thank you for the many things that you have taken the time to teach me about.  I am a good learner and I listen.  See if you can rustle up those pictures of what a fertilized egg looks like.  Frantz had made a post where he showed some pretty good pictures of the egg and how they look as they mature.  I bookmarked them, did you see that post?  If not, I am going to put them in here as links again, in case anyone missed them.  Have a wonderful and greatest of days, Cindi

http://shilala.homestead.com/candling.html

http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/Avian/pfs32.htm

[Angi_H]

Ya I have seen those. I have to see if the lady that had those pictures still has them as they were not up on the sight any longer. You know that little white speck on the yolk of the cracked egg. It will have a circle around it. it will have a little darker color of yellow/orange around it. And yes muscovey mature slower then other ducks. They mature close to a year old. The hen I have is old enough to lay this year. She was hatched in May last year and she will be old enough to lay this year. I should take a picture of her and the drake. The drake was hatched in Aug last year and he is coming old enough to breed in a few months.  The drake I have is a black and gray barred drake. And the hen is black and white. When the darker colored hens start getting white feathers in there wings they wil be old enough to lay.  Dont forget that Muscovey eggs take 35 to 37 days to hatch.  I have 24 muscovey eggs in the incubator now. Chocolates, lilacs, blue, splash, barred and blacks and whites. Crossing my fingers they will hatch most of them. They are hard to hatch via a incubator.


Angi

I will try to get a picture of Butter(drake) and Milk (hen)

[Cindi]

Angi, I would love to see pictures of your ducks and drakes, bring them on.  Give us some other pictures of more of your stuff too.

So.....Muscoveys take about a year to mature.  Rats!!!!  We need some ducks for eating soon.  I know that when we sent the young Muscoveys off to the slaughter house, they were only a couple of months old.  They were huge.  I wonder why they take so long to mature.

Now I am wondering about Richard, (the tom) he was born last June, I bet he won't be old enough to breed for awhile too.  How old are turkeys when they are mature?  I think I need to get some turkey eggs from this lady that I still need to go and see because I don't think we will have any young turkeys for Thanksgiving or Christmas then.

I am shocked at how old they have to be to breed.  How old are chickens before they lay eggs?  I thought that they laid around 17 weeks old, how old are the roosters before they can be viable?  Need to know the answers to these questions.  Have a wonderful and great day, bring on some pictures, girl.  Cindi

[Angi_H]

Turkeys are mature when they have enough sunlight hrs and the spring they turn 6 months old. So mine were 6 months old in october it was to late so they are now mature to breed and the hen is laying and the tom is breeding them.


Angi

[Angi_H]

Oh ya and chickens depending on breed are any where from 17 to 24 weeks old for hens and slightly younger for roosters. Once they start crowing they are old enough to mate.

Angi

still dosnt mean they will know how to do IT though LMAO

[Cindi]

Good, our Tom was born last summer so he should be good to go when the daylight hours get longer.  I really need to get up to that lady's place to get a hen for him.  The weather has been so awful that I haven't bothered yet to go and visit with her.  Soon, hopefully the snow will be gone.  I have never seen snow so much here ever, and it has lingered and lingered and lingered.  I don't like it one little bit.  We are supposed to be temperate, always above freezing and rainy.  Well, the rains are here, but the snow will take a long time yet.  Eeeks.  Have the most wonderful day, Cindi