Muscovy duck

“ This is especially true of the drakes on account of their large size and long wing feathers. Muscovy ducks dress well, having a rich yellow skin, and therefore make a good market duck, although the difference in size of the duck and drake and the dark pin feathers of the Colored variety are disadvantages from a market standpoint. Select against breeders which run small in size as there is more or less of a tendency for this breed to decrease in size. The Muscovy is long lived, specimens having been known to breed until they were eight or ten years of age. ”

“ The only amphibious animals are seals: These are to be found in great numbers about this bay on the small rocks and isles near the sea coast.
We found here five different kinds of ducks, some of which I do not recollect to have any where seen before. The largest are as big as a Muscovy duck, with a very beautiful variegated plumage, on which account we called it the Painted Duck; both male and female have a large white spot on each wing; the head and neck of the latter is white, but all the other feathers as well as those on the head and neck of the drake are of a dark variegated colour. ”

“ There were two pintails, one of which was the most abundant species in the country; also a widgeon, a lake duck, a shoveller duck, with red plumage, grey head and neck, and blue wings; and two species of the long-legged whistling or tree duck. Another common species was the rosy-billed duck, now to be seen on ornamental waters in England; and occasionally we saw the wild Muscovy duck, called Royal duck by the natives, but it was a rare visitor so far south. ”

“ The Muscovy duck, an aborigine of the Platine Valley, has of late years been naturalized—it is a favourite with Africans, who delight in food which gives their teeth and masticatory apparatus the hardest and the longest labour. ”

“ They are not suited to perching. There is a wild tree duck, and it is said that the domestic Muscovy Duck sometimes alights in trees or on objects above the ground, but the familiar kinds of ducks rest only on the surface of the land or on the water. ”

“ After floundering through the swamp, we reached more savannahs, and then entered a beautiful valley, well grassed, and with herds of fine cattle, horses, and mules grazing on it. The grass was well cropped, and looked like pasture-land at home. The ground was now firmer, and we got more rapidly across it. A flock of wild Muscovy ducks flew heavily across the plain, looking very like the tame variety. I do not wonder at sportsmen sometimes being unwilling to fire at them, mistaking them for domestic ducks. The tame variety is very prolific, and sits better on its eggs than the common duck. ”

“ The ducks of the improved breeds are mostly non-sitters. Unless one has common ducks, Muscovy Ducks, Rouen Ducks with some wild Mallard blood, or Mallards not long domesticated, he is not likely to have a duck "go broody," and so small lots of duck eggs are usually hatched under hens. ”

“ Having got into a Creole’s poultry-yard, I am unwilling to quit it without observing, that few better birds are reared than his cross between common ducks and a Muscovy drake. It is found necessary carefully to guard against the ungainly gentleman’s having any rival of the ordinary breed in the neighbourhood, for if the opportunity were afforded them, the ladies would to a certainty forsake their cumbrous lord for the more active commoner. Although the true Muscovy is very coarse eating, the Hybrid is as much an improvement upon the flavour as it is upon the size of the common duck. ”

“ When ducks are to be fattened they must be kept under a coop, and fed with boiled potatoes mixed with oatmeal and bruised oats. Acorns ground or bruised are a favourite food with them, and very fattening. Malt-dust is likewise recommended; but barley is said to give them a bad flavour. The Muscovy ducks should not be kept in the poultry-yard, as they are so much larger and stronger than the common kind that they are apt to fight with them and deprive them of their food; and they are more suitable to the park and pleasure-ground. ”

“ The common black vulture is generally to be seen sailing overhead, or seated on some dead tree; and great Muscovy ducks fly past with a rushing sound, like some great aërial machine beating the air violently to support its ponderous body, and offering a striking contrast to the great wood-ibis, which sails along with noiseless wings in flocks of ten or a dozen. In the skirts of forest and in the larger "ilhas," black and spotted jaguars are often found, while pacas, cotias, tatus or armadillos, deer, and other small game are plentiful. ”

“ Frequently, also, the farm flocks consist of standardbred ducks but on many farms, probably a great majority, the flock consists of the common or so-called "puddle" duck. In certain parts of the South there is a duck known as the "mule duck" which is a cross between the Muscovy and the common duck. This is a duck of good market quality but will not breed from which characteristic it gets its name. Most of the common or "puddle" ducks which are found on farms are of rather small size, are indifferent as layers, and do [Pg 10] not make a desirable type of market duck. ”

“ This is the Wild Duck that has been domesticated and produced all kinds of tame ducks except the one called the Muscovy. Most of the domestic varieties you see in the barnyard look like the wild ones, but some are pure white. ”

“ However, ducks will do well without swimming facilities.
Incubation of duck eggs can be carried on in the same manner as chicken eggs, except that more moisture is essential to good hatches. The period of incubation is 28 days for all types, except for the Muscovy, for which it is 33 to 35 days. The growing birds, like mature ducks, are hardy and ordinarily show a much lower mortality percentage than chickens. If only a few ducks are kept, they will follow the habits of a flock of chickens and need be given no special attention. ”

“ In the female, the bare warty or carunculated skin which is spread from the bill over the eyes, is of a much duller red, and does not cover so large a portion of the head as it does in the male: she is also of a less size.
These birds have obtained the name of Musk Duck, from their musky smell, which arises from the liquor secreted in the glands on the rump. They are a thriving and prolific species, and their flesh, which is highly flavoured, is by many very much esteemed. They will associate with the common ducks; and instances are not wanting of their producing a mixed breed.—Bewick. ”

“ Often as many as a dozen eggs are found, and the nests are lined with the soft down of the ducks. On our coasts these ducks feed upon crustaceans and molluscs, and many fishermen know it by the name of "mussel-cracker." "Rattlewing" is another provincial name owing to the musical whistle which the bird makes with its wings when flying. Its short rounded wings are ever restless; the shy little duck is ceaselessly swimming, diving, flying—never seeming to sleep and never still. The pride of plumage of the golden-eye stands it in little stead at table, where it is considered nearly worthless. ”

“ Garnet Walch, `Victoria in 1880,' p. 30:
"The ungainly musk-duck paddles clumsily away from the passing steamer, but hardly out of gunshot, for he seems to know that his fishy flesh is not esteemed by man."
1880. Mrs. Meredith, `Tasmanian Friends and Foes,' p. 159:
"That's a musk duck: the plumage is very sombre and loose looking—not so thick as most other ducks; the tail, too, is singular, little more than a small fan of short quills. ”

“ Now another is before you, on the margin of that purling streamlet. How brisk are all his motions compared with those of his brethren that waddle across your poultry-yard! how much more graceful in form and neat in apparel! The duck at home is the descendant of a race of slaves, and has lost his native spirit: his wings have been so little used that they can hardly raise him from the ground. But the free-born, the untamed duck of the swamps,—see how he springs on wing, and hies away over the woods. ”

“ The wild ducks splattered and quacked as they paddled busily hither and thither, visiting each little bay and reed-clump at the water's edge. Sometimes, surrendering themselves wholly to sport and play, they formed little groups of two or three; and now one group, and then another, would race, half-swimming, half-flying, from bank to bank or from the rock to the salmon “hover” at the lower end of the pool. The otter remembered her experience with the dabchick, and believed that to capture a full-grown duck would tax her utmost strength and cause a general alarm. ”

“ The tendency to vary in colour is a result of domestication in all species. It was from observing the annual change in the plumage of the domestic drake that the discovery was made that ducks differ from other birds in the manner of their moult. The period of the moult does not coincide in the drake and duck; and this discrepancy in the sexes has caused ducks to differ in their breeding habits from all other birds. Thus, in most birds, male and female share the labours of incubation, and of rearing and protecting the young ”

“ She is clothed with an impenetrable coat of feathers and an equally thick coat of down. She does not take kindly to confinement in a building and will utter her constant protest, and like the average school boy of ten prefers to suffer from the cold outside to being comfortable in. Therefore, the main point in breeding early ducks and erecting buildings for the same, next to supplying them with the right kind of food, is to keep their feet warm. Cold feet affect the winter laying of the duck the same as a frozen comb affects the hen. ”

“ Dixon remarks, "that the duck had not at this time become a naturalised and prolific inmate of the Roman poultry-yard." The origin of the domestic duck from the wild species is recognised in nearly every language of Europe, as Aldrovandi long ago remarked, by the same name being applied to both. The wild duck has a wide range from the Himalayas to North America. It crosses readily with the domestic bird, and the crossed offspring are perfectly fertile.
Both in North America and Europe the wild duck has been found easy to tame and breed. ”

“ Now bend your neck, and say 'Quack!'"
But the Ugly Duckling was an odd bird, as well as an ill-favoured one, and gave much trouble and excited much jealousy in the duck-yard. He quacked indeed, but he would not bend his head or bow to the old duck properly.
"He remained too long in the egg-shell," mused the maternal bird; "and therefore his figure, like his manners, is not properly formed on the true duck model. But as he's a male duck it won't matter so much. I think he'll prove strong, and be able to fight his way through the world." ”

“ With several thousand ducklings confined in one building, the tendency is decidedly filthy. The capacity of the duckling for filth is wonderful, and he comes honestly by it. It is simply astonishing how soon he will manage to mix the contents of his water-tank with that of his yard and make both sloppy and offensive. The chick is nowhere in comparison. It is true, the duck is not so easily affected by it as the chick, but it will not do to presume too much upon that. At this stage the attendant will be kept busy every moment from daylight to dark. ”

“ The female is smaller than the male, from which she also differs greatly in the colours of her plumage, the coverts and spangle-spot on her wings being less brilliant, and the other parts composed of white, grey, and rusty, crossed with curved dusky lines, giving her much the appearance of the common wild duck. She makes her nest, lined with withered grasses, on the ground, in the midst of the largest tufts of rushes or coarse herbage, in the most inaccessible parts of the shaky marsh. She lays ten or twelve pale, rusty-coloured eggs ”

“ Its flesh is next in delicacy to that of the teal, and is held in estimation at table. It is much more rare in the northern than in the southern counties, and off the coast of Cornwall thirty-seven birds have been bagged at one shot. The pintail breeds but rarely in England.
We now come to the diving ducks. Speaking generally, the "surface" ducks haunt fresh water; diving ducks the sea. The most prominent of these are the scaup; common, velvet, and surf scoters; the pochard, golden-eye, and tufted duck.
The inland sportsman or decoy-man knows little of the diving ducks. ”

“ It cannot be kept in a coop or an inclosed place like fowls, but give it an open field, with a running stream, and it will ask nothing more. You will hardly need to feed it, for it knows well how to feed itself.
The duck is not a lazy bird. It will eat almost [187] anything, and is always waddling about picking up snails, grubs, and insects, or sailing on the water and thrusting its beak into the soft mud for worms.
Willie and His Pet Ducks
If the duck farm is large enough and has a pond or stream, the keeping of ducks is very easy. ”

“ Imperial Pekin, Rouen and Indian Runners have been the best market breeds of ducks for some years past, and are still splendid fellows, both for eggs and table, and their new rivals, the Buff Orpington ducks, quite equal them as utility birds.
Ducks make such bad mothers that it is better to hatch their eggs under hens or in incubators. The first few eggs a duck lays each season are seldom fertile. Eleven are a full sitting, and it requires twenty-eight days for their hatching. Examine the nest every two or three days after setting the hen, for bad eggs. ”