General Care For Muscovies

Muscovies are pretty easy to care for if you follow a few general rules that also apply to other backyard poultry. They aren’t as prone to mites or lice or parasites in general because (healthy) waterfowl keep their feathers nicely oiled and tight so the creepy crawlies can’t get in.

The Short List Of Requirements

1. Housing. Muscovies, like all poultry, need a predator safe coop to sleep in at night. While in nature, they fly and roost in trees, in order to keep them in my yard and not have them trespass to my neighbor’s, I clip their wings which effectively prevents them from being able to do so. At my previous property, I converted an old 6 x 8 shed in the backyard into a coop with an attached run. The general rule is about 4 square feet of space per duck. It should be well ventilated because ducks build up a lot of humidity, and reinforced from predators. I used galvanized staples (but screws and washers are more reliable)and hardware cloth and attached it to the inside of the shed walls, in the event some overzealous animal manages to rip open the walls. The floor is concrete so I don’t worry about diggers, but for those who don’t have solid flooring (don’t know why you wouldn’t considering it would be a pain to clean), a skirt of galvanized (to prevent rust) hardware cloth buried 6 – 12 inches around the outside of the coop is a very important safety measure, and one you can’t skimp on (this obviously does not apply if your coop is on raised legs or have solid floors).

Ducks are more cold hardy than chickens due to their thick layer of down, but that, like for all fowl, only holds true so long as they’re healthy and not wet. Make sure the coop is free of leaks and drafts, and they should be comfortable and safe.

Some people complain that the birds don’t go in the coop at night, and I have a couple of solutions to this. The first is light. Muscovies don’t see well in the dark, and like all prey animals, they prefer to be in well lit areas because their predators use the dark for their hunting advantage. Keeping a light on in their coop until you lock them in will both deter predators and teach them that is the safest place to sleep. A few days of this and they begin making moves to the coop as soon as the sun starts going down. The second is feeding them only at night. Apart from forcing them to forage, and thus work at pest control, during the day, it’s a great incentive to get all of them in at night. These days, all I have to do is tap a bowl of feed against their run and they come galloping into it from all corners of my yard.

2. Bedding. People like to use all sorts of things, but I’ve only used a mix of straw and wood shavings. I’ve heard great things about sand and horse stall bedding or things like coop clean, but I need the straw and wood shavings for fertilizer infused mulch, so it’s dual purpose for me. In general, I spot clean about once a day and do a full overhaul about every two weeks. A bale of straw and a bale of wood shavings from my local feed store cost about $18, and can last me through 5 cleanings.

I found straw by itself is not absorbent enough, and wood shavings on it’s own is a pain to shovel out. Mixing the two gives just the right amount of absorbency and is easy to remove in giant, flat chunks.

A relatively new product on the market is pelletized bedding, which absorbs moisture quickly and is cheap. They’re normally used for horses, but it has also found use by poultry keepers. Since they look like pelleted feed, make sure you expand them first by moistening them a bit so the birds don’t accidentally eat it and get impacted. It becomes fluffy, and in the future you can just add more pellets (without expanding) to soak up the excess moisture.

3. Feed. During the day, my muscovies free range in the fenced in quarter acre (I will occasionally accompany them outside of that into my fruit and vegetable garden but that’s few and far in between, also note that free-ranging comes with biosecurity and predator risk so do it at your own discretion), and I keep a bowl in the house for vegetable trimmings and leftovers when I periodically clean out my pantry and fridge so that I may throw it to them when it’s full (non commercial feed should make up no more than 10% of their diet if you worry about their health). They are omnivorous, and will eat all sorts of vegetables, fruits, bugs, and meat. One thing that you have to be careful about it if you feed them things that are fishy, the taste of their eggs can be affected. I tend to give any seafood sparingly, but they love things like the shells of shrimp, and I’ve had one steal a crab from me when I threw a seafood boil party earlier in the summer.

I give them about a pound and a half of layers pellets at night–a pound and a half for 7 adults I have found is the perfect amount because any more and they ignore the rest, which is a waste of feed for me. Female ducks (called hens) need extra calcium for their eggs, or else you start getting soft-shell eggs which is dangerous in that if it breaks inside of them, it can kill them. They will also start pulling calcium from their own bodies, which isn’t healthy either. I usually throw their own spent eggshells back to them after we’ve eaten what’s inside, and they gobble it up.

Some people give non-layer/All Flock/Flock Maintenance pellets with a bowl of free choice oyster shell so the females can take in as much calcium as they need to. This is important if you have males or juveniles that you don’t separate during feedings because their kidneys could fail with an overload of calcium, along with a host of other issues.

Make sure wherever you keep the extra calcium source, it is away from where you normally feed them. This way, only the females that feel they need it will go and munch on them (I use crushed oyster shell.) Otherwise, juveniles and males might accidentally start horfing them down in the rush of dinnertime and trying to get more than the next duck.

4. Water. Ducks need more water than chickens and also can’t use a nipple waterer the way chickens can. They need it to wash out their nostrils so it doesn’t get clogged up. They don’t love it as much as mallard type ducks but they do enjoy it, and will use the water to wash themselves. I provide a three gallon bucket once in the morning and once at night. It would probably be a lot easier when I get the hose spigot fixed in my backyard but for now, I’m lugging it around. They make the water quite dirty so you’ll have to dump it out every time you refill it.

5. Gender ratio. Male muscovies would unfortunately, be considered sex offenders if they were people, so a proper gender ratio of 1 male (drake) to 3-4 females minimum (hens) is necessary, or else the male could harass a poor female to death. If you have a mixed flock of chickens and ducks (which I do NOT recommend), be careful because a drake can injure a chicken by attempting to mate with them, (ducks have penises and roosters don’t). Two or more males will fight if there are females around, but I’ve seen groups of them cohabiting peacefully when there are no girls to fight over. Your mileage may vary.

6. Integrating new flock members. First, make sure you have quarantined the new muscovies for a minimum of 2 weeks to make sure they don’t have any diseases they could give to your existing flock. You have a few methods to integrate—you can do the “see but not touch” method for a week if you don’t have enough coop and free ranging space, which is keeping the new ones separated from the existing flock so that they can see, hear, and smell each other but not touch or fight. Then allow them to spend time together in a large area where the new ones can run if they have to. The second is letting them all meet while free ranging and then herding them together back into the coop at night. Again, the main thing is that while they are working out their pecking order, the new ones need to be able to escape the existing flock. If any get injured to the point of drawing blood, apply Blue Kote so they don’t pick on them further due to the injury.

The Long List Of Optionals

1. Free ranging. The obvious pros of free ranging are that you spend less on feed, you get pest control, free fertilizer for your lawn, and the ducks get a wider variety diet and are happier in general. The cons of it are obviously that you get poop on your lawn, and on your deck if you have one, and predators are always an issue. I only let them free range if I’m home, and my male tends to get rid of any feline predators that come by. He’s almost the size of a goose so cats, ours included, are afraid when he charges them. While their large size tends to deter hawks, raccoons, eagles, owls, foxes, etc. will all go for them, so free comes with risks and depending on your purpose for them, you may feel it isn’t worth it (along with the added risk of getting diseases from wild birds.) A properly sized, predator proof, cooped run is safest for your birds if you can’t bear to lose any.

If you do free range, make sure to only use non-toxic things on your lawn if you use them at all (I don’t use anything so I don’t worry about it.)

2. Swimming pool. Ducks, contrary to popular belief, don’t need a pool to swim in (well, as long as it isn’t an ornamental duck–wood ducks and mandarin ducks do need a pond) but they like it very much. In the summer, I give them a little kiddie pool and they love taking turns to splash around and clean themselves with it. It’s good because sometimes my muscovies can get a little dirty with all their foraging, and a bath helps keep them looking sleek and clean.

3. Nest boxes. They honestly don’t need it as they often make their own by rearranging the straw in their coop, and they don’t always use it either. I just have a few wooden crates for them to use, filled with straw and wood shavings. Sometimes they use it, sometimes they don’t and prefer to make their own. Sometimes they just drop an egg wherever they’re standing so it doesn’t even matter.

4. Run. A run is a great add on to your coop because it gives them the freedom of the outdoors when you aren’t home to supervise for free ranging. It also increases the amount of space they have so they’re not all crowded in. It has to be predator proof though, and a hardware cloth skirt is a must, as is a cover for it. I use wood chips from my local compost facility (they give free mulch) which keeps the coop from smelling (the tannins in the wood neutralizes the ammonia) and when it breaks down, I have compost to use in my garden. Mine is a converted dog kennel, with 1/2 inch hardware cloth all around. It should be small enough that raccoons can’t get their sneaky little hands since they’ll rip a duck out piece by horrifying piece. Having a solid roof on the run helps in preventing wild bird droppings from coming in that may make your birds sick.

5. Winter lighting. I like to give my ducks a break during the winters, when they (normally) don’t lay, and I’ll resign myself to buying eggs during that time, but some people give supplemental light so their animals will lay throughout the winter. Remember, a bird only has so many eggs in their bodies, so if you do this, they’ll run out of eggs sooner than if you didn’t. Of course, some birds will lay no matter what the weather is like, as I once found a frozen nest full of eggs deep in February–I hadn’t bothered to check for eggs since I was sure they wouldn’t have laid, but what do you know, they did!

6. Food grade DE. I haven’t needed to use it just yet, but it’s a great thing for keeping their coop and run clean of mites and other bugs. Make sure it’s food grade so that your ducks don’t get hurt from accidentally ingesting some. You can sprinkle it around the coop/run. It is only somewhat preventative, and loses its ability when wet, so while ducks are not as prone to mites as chickens, once an infestation has set in, it’s important to use chemical applications to eradicate them.

7. Organic feed vs…. not. I’ve done both, and honestly, I couldn’t really tell a difference in the quality of their eggs. The organic feed is double the price of the regular feed, and aside from being greener and smelling nicer, there was no noticeable difference to me. It is probably because my ducks free range most of the time and the nutrients they get from their feed is so little that it didn’t matter. Did it make me feel better about giving them organic? Yep! Sure did. So even if it was all psychological, if it makes you feel good and you can afford it, go for it.

8. Turmeric. This one I discovered by accident because I’m a skeptic in general and herbal things, unless I’ve seen it work or read papers on, I tend to view warily. I’ve heard people tout the great effects of turmeric powder for their poultry, stating it helps reset their egg laying system because of it’s anti-inflammatory properties. I didn’t believe it but had some leftover powder and decided to mix it in with their evening meal, thinking it can’t hurt.

So, I’ve never gotten non-poopy eggs from the ducks before and I just thought it was normal for ducks because they drink more water than chickens and eggs, you know, come out from the same hole poop does.

However, the day after I gave them the turmeric, all 6 of the eggs that came out were perfectly clean. I hadn’t changed their bedding or anything, so I was amazed! It might be that it changes their bowels instead and the consistency of their droppings so they evacuate their bowels more cleanly?

I then began reading actual research papers and they did find that turmeric increased egg production by 4% in older hens past the optimal age of lay.

A teaspoon for 6 females once a week is enough.

For information on maintaining your flock in the winter, visit my overwintering page here.

Click here for Duckling Care