On 15 Mar 2004 14:39:46 -0800, (Mark) wrote:

"Anonny Moose" wrote in message ...
Congratulations! Ducks are pretty darn sloppy but cuter than all get out.
They eat a fair share of the bugs and spiders and slugs and fertilize the
area, to boot. How can you beat that?? Did you get them sexed or will it be
a surprise?

Karen


Well, it's going to be a surprise, I guess. I had wanted to make sure
I got all females, but the guy at the feed store couldn't guarantee
it. He didn't claim to know how to sex them beyond hearing somewhere
that the females have smaller heads than the males. (No sexist vibe,
either)

I figure that they'll be fun no matter what sex they are, but if we're
going to eat duck eggs, I'd really rather not crack one open to find a
fetal duck inside.

I'm all over the idea of having these guys around to keep the slug 'n'
bug population under control. My kids eat stuff straight out of the
garden, so I don't use pesticide...the closest I come is laying out a
bowl of beer to kill a handful of slugs each night.

Mark

Drake peking ducks are the ... ahem.. horniest creatures on earth!
They regularly rape hen mallards and any other duck they can. I've
seen 4 and 5 drakes chasing down frantic hens in the parks.

I don't know if you've ever seen America's Funniest Home Videos, and
all those "funny duck" shots of a dog and duck that are "great
buddies" where the duck would swim after a dog swimming in the water
and grab the dog's hair and hop on it's back or try.. every one I've
seen of a duck and anything...have been a drake trying to "mate" with
whatever it was, animal or object.

Muscovy ducks come in white, pied, and as I've seen blue and
chocolates, but white and pied are the ones I see the most. They have
warty looking skin around their eyes called Caruncles. The drakes are
much larger than the hens, and have more of the warty red skin. I
guess a muscovy equivalent of a chicken's "comb". They have a crest
they can raise and lower on their heads, and they do now quack. They
have quiet hiss conversations and they used to walk in a V formation
in my back yard bobbing their heads hissing rhythmically and bobbing
their heads.. made me laugh every time I saw them.

They need a good deal of grass to walk on not so much dirt or their
feet will get sore, the water you provide them needs to have rocks or
ramps that are not too steep so they can get OUT of the water as I
said before, they do not have the oil glands ducks have and they can
become water logged and drown. They get out of the water and preen
and fan their feathers out to dry their feathers. They're comical,
quiet without being voiceless, good layers, excellent mothers, and
tasty if you lean that way. ;-)

Some pictures of muscovy ducks

http://www.muscovy.co.uk/ pied
http://www.pinnaclefarms.ca/waterfowl.htm white hens & fuzzy babies
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/D...RKScobies.html all
kinds of pictures, just keep scrolling down even when it looks like it
ended, that's where the pictures begin! Lots of them. Don't get
freaked out by the one that has so much gross red warty skin on its
head that you can barely see the duck, that is NOT the norm!
http://www.the-coop.org/wwwboard/dis...es/3/3219.html some info
about muscovies.

Anyway.. I like muscovies .. they're far more interesting than the
plain ol' duck with much more personality and manners.

Janice