Keep your domestic animals domestic

Why would you ever want to raise anything besides the Ancona on the farm? Biodiversity...Yes I good reason, but if you want to raise an animal that has all the characteristics of other ducks and the dual purpose of eggs and meat then the Ancona is the way to go. Raising other types of ducks in the Northwest is harder because they are not meant to be in such cold wet weather. Some breeds will do better than others.The Runner ducks are nice to look at and they are good eggs layers, but if you happen to like meat they are a very skinny breed with nothing on them. Much goes to waste when the males must be culled! The Muscovy would do ok in this area except raising them in your backyard is like trying to raise turkeys in town, you will need to pen them. They will be in the trees if you dont...! The Muscovy is not really a duck, it is (Cairina moschata), most closely related to the guinea fowl. They are in the Anatidae family, but they are wild but every means. The domesticated birds invade habits and can reproduce on their own in the wild in numbers quickly. They are not really meant to fit in the Anas Genus and I think they should be thought of differently, a wild species. In Florida they are having issues right now with how the populations of domesticated Muscovy are populating areas in cities. It would not be a problem but people seem to think letting their domesticated fowl mix with wild populations is fine, its not. If they were wild and not breed to have other traits, then they are wild but domesticated ducks are not meant to be in the wild, we create as much of a wild scenario for our Ducks at our farm but they are protected from predators and watched carefully. Here is a video from Florida showing the Muscovy in someones pool.


Hopefully if you raise animals you know the difference between a wild one and a domesticated one. The need to care for them and not let them run away and possibly overpopulate is a decision that we make and we can help to make the right one.