I have had these amazing ducks on the farm since the first spring we arrived coming on 22 years now. The amount of ducks has come up and down but they are one of the main livestock we always have, the reasons are vast, they are sweet quiet birds, amazing layers, great mothers, taste mighty fine indeed and they also are outstanding fly control
Having said that with my health issues over the past years, the number of them in our keep year round flock has gone down in numbers, shifting from eggs/meat to more eggs/farm bug/small amount of meat, no one local will butcher them, which makes them a home butcher and i have been enjoying buying half or whole beef from down the road.
I quite like having them be helpful working flock in smaller breeding numbers with less butcher but the cost of beef has made it clear that i will need to expand my duck breeding this year. In keeping with this, i am adding in four 2 year old proven unrelated hens that coming from one of the local 4-H, supporting a youth just adds the cherry on top.
I am not at all happy to be adding that much small stock butchering back onto my work load but i will be happy to have a small stock that can be raised on the farm in a great value way, the young ducklings are going to be used to help with bug/slug/snail issues in the gardens, I will be pulling all ducklings at a certain age to go with one hen and let the others go back to egg laying, setting and hatching.. While i know that sometimes i do get three sets per year, most of the time, i don’t let them set more then twice, this year i might go for three, we will see.
A select number of the males will be allowed to grow out for our Mock Beef use, but i expect most will be done at a younger age but time will confirm that. As the cost of feed goes up, there are choices to be made and many of them mean more work to keep the plates filled.
What is your plan to get access to a cheaper protein source, growing more beans to add to rice, more chicken, a pig, hunting, fishing, eggs? If you have space, time an the health to do so, its a good idea to raise, grow more of your own calories for your meals if you can.
I look forward to picking up the new females next week, as the sunlight grows, they will trigger the duck hens to start getting ready to lay again, the first hatches will be the right age to able to go out in the garden tractors.
Just another Day on the Farm 
What are your housing practices for your Muscovy? We tried raising them a few years back and it was kind of a disaster. They ended up getting wet feather and we had parasite problems and I just am not sure exactly what we did wrong. They did set and hatch a few chicks for us, which was nice. But after a year of battling issue after issue with them we gave up. I would love to raise them successfully. So I am curious where yours are housed summer, winter? Do they free-range? Do you have a pond, provide them a pool, or what do you use for their water? etc? Thanks!
Good Morning WillowCreek, for winter time i have two different ways to house them, depending on age, so this winter, the drakes which work well as a drake flock are full outside in a pen with a T framed hut with straw that they can choose to go in but at times i have also built straw huts depending on the sizes i need. The females are all in the barn, they have a big stall for the winter, they will get moved back outside and split into breeding groups, in winter the water is protected with a cover that allows them to dip in heads but nothing else, in summer, they can get different types of water access, some time they get hanging water, other times they get tubs and once they get to a certain size, they have a pond area in the pasture that they will swim/waddle in, its a area that i use them to glee that space to help expand and hold the water there. They can at times free range yes but never during the early spring, as they will eat the frogs and tadpoles and i need those, they are dirty like all ducks, when they are in pens, they get clean drinking water and straw bedding in the sleeping area and otherwise they rest on the snow, when inside pens, again clean drinking water access with straw bedding that gets cleaned out much more then the chicken does, they only get access to bathing in rain and pond/wet when outside, if you want more details then that, let me know
That is helpful. Thank you. We would like to try them again someday. Not likely this year with the transplant, but someday.