Grape has three more wives so now has a total of five!!! These gorgeous looking birds have come from the same farm as Apple and like her, are stunning birds, really healthy and tame. They arrived on Saturday and today out on the main poultry area grass, looked very much at home. Since Saturday they have also laid an egg a day each!!! Amazing!! Not that we want to hatch too many just now as they won’t be pure Muscovy!! The drakes at their last home were Runner ducks and even if Grape has his wicked way with them now, the usual advice is to wait three weeks to ensure that all the semen from the previous male has died and is no longer viable for fertilising the female's eggs. We may leave some eggs in the nest box where they are laying (all three have chosen the same one and even Apple has now joined in too) and see if any of them go broody but ideally we would like to be raising pure Muscovies if we can as they will be easier to sell (probably) and we can charge more money, not important in itself but as it will cost as much money to raise them and as much time to look after them, we may a well try to breed the best we can!!! We should point out at this stage that the middle duck (we have yet to sort names) is NOT pure Muscovy, though she looks very like one!!! We chose her because she is simply very pretty!!!
The crosses will be good for pet homes and it is also always nice to have ducklings for visitors as they definitely hit the right spot when it comes to a great 'cuteness factor'!!