rachels.haven's Journal

[rachels.haven]

Oh great storehouse of all Moscovy knowledge, how do you pinion the ducklings? Inquiring minds are wanting to know.
mega thanks.

I did it a bit late, but in the first 7-10 days of life when their bodies are still only investing resources in developing legs and following the o speedy mom, you catch them, open their tiny flabby, undeveloped chicken wing, which should still be all cartilage at the top at this point. Find their thumb, then with a pair of sharp kitchen sheers remove below the thumb. Avoid the joint. You're just essentially taking their finger or a decent part of it. The younger they are, the more it's like piercing an ear rather than limb removal and they really don't bleed. They get more upset at being caught and held, than the pinion. You only have to do one side.

I do this to avoid a duck rodeo or losing my females to wandering...also there is an obscure, rarely enforced federal law that required domestic Muscovy to be marked by pinion or clipping the back row, which is pointless (and they're only supposed to be food, not show animals or pets, but that's ridiculous, so it's not enforced). Pinion might make it so you can not show, as show ducks must either be all white with maybe a cap, or less than 10% white, if my memory serves, and you can't prove what the pionioned wingtip would have been (but it's been a while, so fact check me, I guess).
I pinion for reduced trauma on us all later. I'm pretty sure wild Muscovy would die here.

 

[animalmom]

Thanks for the info! Sure beats catching and trimming every year.

 

[rachels.haven]

Yes, and guessing when the time is right and winding up with a duck over the house.

 

[Jesusfreak101]

Wait can you do this with other ducks, chickens and geese???

 

[rachels.haven]

Yes, I learned on coturnix quail, but chicks and ducklings and goslings can be done too. Early would be the key. It's like clipping the flight feathers except you are removing the place where the flight feathers grow. Are you having a problem with escaping, flying birds?

 

[rachels.haven]

I have concocted a plan for white eggs, lol. I wonder if it will actually happen,

 

[Jesusfreak101]

Lol yes they like to escape mostly during the cooler season they never go far. However the chickens love flying into my garden.

 

[rachels.haven]

That's a pain. Adults you didn't pinion should probably have the flight feathers on the last segment of their wings hacked off as penalty for garden wrecking and future chicks can be pinioned.

Oh man, those chickens butthead garden wreckers. Don't get me started there.

 

[Jesusfreak101]

Lol I clip their wings some are smart enough to still get out. One i dislike alot the moment she stops laying i am earring her lol. She a new layer this year so she has a short term pass.

 

[Bruce]

I have concocted a plan for white eggs, lol. I wonder if it will actually happen,

Um, get chickens that lay white eggs?

Unfortunately they are mostly Mediterranean breeds with large combs and often an "attitude". Potentially flighty and aggressive toward the other birds. I got 2 AustraWhites from Meyer last June. They are White Leghorn X Black Australorp. Mine are mostly white with the odd black feather, shaped and sized more like a leghorn than a BA and lay L to XL eggs. Aurora has a larger comb (though not as large as the Anconas I got in 2012) and lays white. Gretel has a somewhat smaller comb and lays a very light beige. Neither seem to be aggressive toward the other birds. Of course there is no guarantee as to what percentage of AWs will lay a purely white egg.