Muscovy

Our muscovy patrol is the best bug control you could ask for!

They don’t quack so they go about their business pretty much silently. The muscovy drake makes a dry hissing sound and the hen a quiet trilling coo. The males are twice the size of the females. The drakes waddle around with great effort no wonder when you see the size of them. The male's most distinctive features are a bare red face with a pronounced caruncle at the base of the bill and a low erectile crest of feathers. They are not faithful to one duck but like a whole bevvy of lovely ladies! We recommend only keeping one drake with your ducks as the boys can get over keen. They have very social behaviour: meeting and greeting with lots of neck waving, low hissing and trills and tail wagging. They must have some great conversations! They are also great weed eaters and polish off any feed or scraps lying around. The females are petite and like the drakes have very sharp claws. Once the ducks are experienced sitters they make devoted mothers and raise the young exceptionally well teaching them all they need to know. One of our mums has just raised 18 ducklings through to teenagehood. We gave her a gold medal for being so patient with that many kids!

The eggs make good eating and are great for baking sponges. The drakes make excellent table birds. The meat is lean when compared to the fatty meat of mallard-derived ducks, its leanness and tenderness being often compared to veal. The carcass of a muscovy drake is also much heavier than most other domestic ducks, which makes it ideal for the dinner table. We have bred some beautiful colours blue, blue and white and splash.