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I bought some kahki Campbel duck eggs on E bay and only hatched out two ducks. Only one survived and is a lonely fella always trying to get with the chooks
Anyway I plan on starting over and he's going to end up in brown gravy. I ordered 1 musquovy drake and 6 Kahki Campbel hens chicks hoping to get some big mulies as well as the good laying of the kahki hens. One of my nieces has bad allergic reactions to chicken eggs but her doctor said that she may not be to duck eggs. Eggs are in almost everything and the poor thing misses out on so much good food, baking candy etc. So I wouldn't mind getting her mom some when they start laying.

muscovies are not a real duck breed, they take longer to incubate the eggs than ducks. I don't know if you will get mules out of them

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contentment

Yep, I doubt they will breed, very different creatures... Though I know the muscovy drake will definitely keep on trying. Be prepared for the fact that you may have to pen the drake up separately, I had to with mine, he left the poor old duck with a bleeding back, and hardly any feathers left.. He was getting into the chickens as well, poor chooks...

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Bringing Food Production Home

So whats that give a duook or a chuck

"Chuck" does have a certain ring to it....

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My brother had a flock penned up and had some mulies but that was a long time ago and I don't remember the colatteral damage to the hens. He only ended up with a few mulies but I just though it was because the mallard drakes where watching their hens and the muscovies had their own hens. He also had some small teal and mean Japanese geese. The sites below mention only 20/30% fertility on the cross but 80% thru artificial incemination....I don't think I'll be doing that though.

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/Ducks/Musc/Mule.html
http://www.metzerfarms.com/MuleDucks.cfm?CustID=27632

Muscovies readily breed mules with other breeds. We have success with Pekins, which makes a very tasty table duck. The Khaki should have no problems with a couple of Muscovy hens, if you get them young enough to bond with him.

Muscovies are a very tasty bird even as a pure bred, and breed very well. The meat isn't as fatty as normal ducks, but I reckon even tastier. Our hens will sit on 20 eggs, and are they one of the best incubators (even for chook eggs) that we have come across. This can be a bit of a problem sometimes as they will steal unattended eggs to sit on! They grow quickly, we get 2kg dressed after 10-12 weeks, and if you time butchering to miss the pin feathers they are easy to process. They are very good protective mothers, even our German Shepherd won't go near a mother and her brood. Eggs are very full of flavour, excellent for cooking and baking. I like the strong flavour in my poached eggs for brekky, some are not so keen on it.

As noted above they are not a duck that most people are used to, but they are still a duck. They don't quack only hiss and squeak (makes them ideal for city yards) and will sit for 35 days. They are classed as a "Perching Duck" and they will roost in trees. They are a South American duck that has many similarities to geese, which has caused some confusion in their classification.

Even if we have no other birds we keep a trio of Muscovies for eggs and meat.

Thanks for the heads up Stretchman, nice to have someone with some poultry experience on board. Have you ever had troubles with a Muscovy leaving her nest? My girl was sitting on about 16 eggs for a couple of weeks, then suddenly she got up off the nest, flew up on the fence, then in next door, then up on their fence and into the next yard... She just buggered off...

I had a look at the eggs and there were some well formed ducks inside them..

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Rarely earthbound.

Sometimes after a thunderstorm poultry will leave their nests. Thunder can kill the unhatched chicks, even when in incubators. Overheating is also another (rare) problem in hot weather. Be sure that the hens can get wet so that they can control the humidity of the eggs. A plastic kids "clam shell" is ideal.

As for going walkabout... normally when they are well fed and have plenty of water they will stay put. Normally! We will still trim flight feathers when they start their flapping and running around the backyard and when the ducklings get their first full coat of feathers. We only trim one wing, the imbalance is more effective than trimming both and tends to deter any more flapping. The hens tend to fly more than the bigger drakes.

Oh that's an old wives tale! If they are disturbed and keep off the nest or the nest is flooded, then yes it's very unlikely they'll hatch but nothing to do with thunder killing them! Getting the humidity right would be the biggest issue.

That explains the eggs being sat on, Ducky, but what about the higher fail rate when incubated? Plenty of breeders (some with many years experience) I have spoken to, as well as myself, have lost eggs.

It sounded like an O.W.T. to me when I first heard it, but I can't work out any other possible reason when incubated eggs which are temperature and humidity controlled fail en mass. Could it be the change in air pressure? Or the shock wave from a nearby thunder clap (I find this one a bit hard to swallow myself).

If anyone else has a theory, or can debunk this myth, please let us know.

Well....how about electrical faults? Lightning can set up large surges in the earth or power lines. Could that cause incubators to malfunction to overheat, underheat (turn off a while), or other?

OK. I have spoken to some people on a poultry message board, people I respect as knowledgeable about all things chooky and... they told me it was an old wives tale! They brought up commercial hatcheries that have setups that hatch all year round. Some of these people live in the States in areas where thunderstorms are worse than here and don't experience these losses regularly. I have also done searches online and in my books and can not find anything to support it.

So Gone Ducky, you were right. I am looking for a new excuse for losing my chicks now. It is now down to aliens or pixies!

Thank you for learning me something!

Ah well now you start looking at getting a nice shiny new incubator. Perfect excuse because the old one must be buggered....

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I have 4 Muscovies and 2 Indian Runners

I thought I had 1 Drake and 3 Ducks but it turns out one of my Ducks is a Boy. I'll see how the two Drakes go together but if they start fighting I'll have to get rid of one. I find the Muscovies are a really good Duck, they are so Docile.

I have the Runners for egg production, two males at the moment, so not too many eggs there! I am hopefully going to get another 4 female Runners.
They are all White Strains and I want to keep them true to their colours so I wont be crossing with different colour strains.

I need to get the female Runners soon, the males are trying it on with my chooks!