We have increased our muscovy flock. Merle now has two more girls in addition to Maggie and Frieda. They're young, and I expect they'll hit 1 year in late summer. Man, can these ducks fly. We had to clip wings, as they enjoyed flying all around the backyard and over in the chicken yard.
New girl
Of the scovys hatched last year, we butchered all but one drake. We also butchered our goose Broccoli, Beefy's girl/boy friend. Pretty sure Broccoli was a boy, and low boy on the totem pole to Beefy. Beefy was entirely uninterested in Broccoli, and would mount the ducks instead. We never saw Broccoli mount the ducks, but I'm guessing because Beefy was so dominant. Anyhow, the crazy thing was that the two <1yr old scovy drakes that we butchered dressed out at nearly the exact same weight as that goose! Nuts!
We ended up getting a pilgrim female for Beefy, and named her Abigail. Great thing about a pilgrim is that we KNOW it's a girl, due to the sex-linked color. Yay! Crusty is in LUUUURVE with Abigail (Crusty has a goose fetish, having grown up with geese) and likes to follow Abigail around while doing her sexy duck dance. It's highly amusing, but Abby doesn't care much for it. Added plus, the gal I got Abby from has pied guineas. She's supposed to give me a call this summer when she has keets, and we'll be able to get Deputy Guinea some friends. Ah, I can already hear the guinea chorus. Sigh.
AbigailWe kept one chocolate drake from last year's hatches, Choco Taco, and got him two girls as well. Only one of the 4 total new girls has a name. Chad named her Hennifer Grey. :) She's a pretty gray/brown, and a really calm and petite little girl.
Hennifer GreyChoco, the muscovy drake we kept, is a big beautiful boy. He was attacked by our trio of turkey toms a few months ago and they just about scalped and blinded him. Time in a crate and treatment with bluekote, and he's growing his feathers back on his head, and still has both eyes, though his beak is a little gnarly on top. He was really a mess for a while, but is back out there terrorizing the roosters and lovin his girlfriends. We also only have ONE tom left... his brothers were very tasty (seasoned with "these damn turkeys attacked my Choco").
ChocoWhat else, what else... Traeger and Weber, boer goat and katahdin sheep, are fat and sassy and slated for slaughter on the 19th. We'll kill/gut/skin here at the house, and then take the carcasses to the butcher for further processing. Very ready for them to go, as it's almost time for pigs! We're debating taking the hides down to a guy in Clackamas to be processed, as they're really nice and fluffy from the unusually cold weather we've experienced over the last few months. We could try to do it at home, but their coats are so nice... I think we'll practice on the next deer we get, and just have these professionally done.
Fat, Sassy, and headed for the freezer.So, that's about it for the moment. Not too much else exciting.
More soon!
