# Butchering muscovy ducks



## dunroven

I need some help here folks. I am going to be butchering some ducks and may have some sold. These are muscovy ducks. I need to be able to keep the skin on.

What are your best tips besides the following?

1. Use the leg of a pair of jeans (women's for hens, mens for drakes), and stick the head of the duck through the bottom part of the leg and the body through the calf part of the jeans leg.

2. Add some Dawn dishwashing liquid to the boiling water to help cut the grease.

3. Put the bird in the water feet first, so that the water will get under the feathers, as their feathers grow tight to the body to keep water out, in the direction from the head to the tail. If you put in feet first and hold onto the head, the water goes up from the tail to the head. That makes sense to me.

Okay, any advice on the plucking part. How do you leave yours for sale? Whole, wings on, wings off?

Better yet, anyone done a video on this?

Thanks!

Valorie


----------



## Danaus29

The wings are easy to pluck. I would leave them on for sale. The place I used to use for processing kept the water at 140*F. And I have been told wearing rubber gloves makes the feathers easier to grab. Other than that I'm not much help.


----------



## dunroven

That's a start anyway! I'm thinking I may try to do one on my own. There are absolutely no processing plants around here willing to do muscovies. Are they THAT hard to do?

I will see. Maybe if I do it, I will do some videoing and see if we can get a good video for everyone and then we can critique it and make changes to make it better?


----------



## Danaus29

It's not just Muscovies. There's only 1 place I know that will do any ducks or geese. Half a million places will do chickens but those that will do ducks are few and far between. They aren't that hard. I've plucked a few. You just have to have the water really warm and get them at the right stage of feather development. Check the breast to see if there are old feathers or little tiny pin feathers coming in. (so very hard to do when the duck is alive) I have found that just when the red facial growths start is the best time for plucking. The one I just finished had few pin feathers and was starting to get the big feathers on the neck and back. I didn't pluck it although it probably would have been an easy one to pluck. They just don't fit in the crock pot with the skin and wings on.


----------



## KIT.S

I'm concerned about telling the edible Muscovy males from the producing females. My Muscovies are young yet, but eventually I want to be able to eat the males.

I skinned a producing (chicken) hen the other day because she had a lot of bright red head-gear compared to the other hens, and there are half-a-dozen young roosters in the flock to be gotten rid of. She was full of eggs. Darn.
Kit


----------



## Ceres Hil

they have different colored feet....


----------



## Danaus29

KIT.S, when they start to grow that red on their faces the males will be quite a bit larger. Males are almost twice the size of a female.

Dd wants me to butcher one of the young females. The one in question is real flighty and doesn't go into the shed when we are putting the others up. There's not much market for 'scovies in the fall so even though this one is show quality she will probably end up on the dinnertable. I've got enough females. I am not willing to feed them all winter (probably $20 worth of feed) just to get $10 out of them in the spring.


----------



## dunroven

It is EXTREMELY difficult to find a USDA processor here. In fact, so far I have not found 1 in Iowa or the surrounding states. There are 2 state facilities, but I have found a customer, who may want major amounts of muscovy, like 200 a month????? However, I can't sell them to him if they are just state inspected. They must be USDA inspected to cross state lines. :flame:

Anyway, I'm thinking over the long haul, with the lack of processors to do these birds, MAYBE? I should become a processor?????

These folks that are state inspected are getting $5.50 per bird at one place and $7.00 at the other (WOW)

So, might be best to do this, huh?


----------



## Danaus29

That's what we're going to try to set up for. I'll have to get some equipment and build the room but if we can ever get things arranged at the guest house I will have a processing room.


----------



## dunroven

I asked the lady who does the ducks at the state facility why she thought no USDA facilities were doing it and only 2 in the entire state that anyone could tell me about. She said, "Simply? Its hard work." Well duh! Not much in life isn't hard work,..........is it? Or am I just missing something here?

I took a rabbit to the processor because I have to do that in order to get them sold to this guy as well. The processor charges a very fair price, $2.00 per rabbit. That includes kill, dress, cryovac, and box in cases for shipment. I feel like that's a very fair price. HOWEVER, I had him do 2, one for me and one for my client. I opened up the rabbit and took it out and the kidneys were still inside. I knew the liver would be, but the kidneys?????

Do I want to send this rabbit as a sample to my buyer? Is this normal? I know this is the poultry thread, but I'll ask on the rabbit thread too.

Thanks!


----------



## Judy in IN

OH! Oh! Oh! KEEP the kidneys! They are very tasty!


----------



## dunroven

Judy!

I'm not one easily put off by eating something I have never had before, but KIDNEYS?????? I can't do anything kidneys. Do you fry them? I'm not sure, knowing about them, that I could eat them.....


----------



## fixer1958

I cut the wings off at the second joint. Nothing much there anyway.

If you are not going to skin them, then get some poultry wax. If you don't, you will have your work cut out for you. I just melt about 2" of wax in a turkey fryer and dip them in there a couple of times and them cool them off in cold water. Then just peel it off. Takes the pin feathers with it.

All this is after the first major plucking. This is for the pin feathers.
You may have to do it a few times.

Beats the heck out of tweezers. I do the main pluck at 160 degrees for 1 minute with dish soap in the water


You can reuse the wax.. Just reheat and pour it through an old collander.

That's how I do it.


----------



## Cat

Darn fixer...that was the only other suggestion I had was the wax! Just came to me reading this thread. heh!


----------



## fixer1958

If I remember right, you ARE the Muskovy Queen.

You were right about the ethnic crowd. I can hardly keep enough around fast enough.
Are Asians considered ethnic?


----------



## dunroven

Yeah, I was wondering if you could reuse the wax. A lady on Agriseek told me about using wax.

Now, how are you guys getting folks for the ethnic groups, if I may ask. I won't probably steal your market since we are far apart, but we have some here, I just don't know how to approach them and how much to ask for the birds from them?

I am getting lots of little black and white duckies and have about 17 more eggs in the incubator. I'm trying to hatch each and every one that I get now, which is down to about 1 daily to every other day from about 6 hens.

I do have about 12 babies right now, so next year will be different!


----------



## Joshie

Danaus29 said:


> KIT.S, when they start to grow that red on their faces the males will be quite a bit larger. Males are almost twice the size of a female.
> 
> Dd wants me to butcher one of the young females. The one in question is real flighty and doesn't go into the shed when we are putting the others up. There's not much market for 'scovies in the fall so even though this one is show quality she will probably end up on the dinnertable. I've got enough females. I am not willing to feed them all winter (probably $20 worth of feed) just to get $10 out of them in the spring.


Too bad you're not in IL. I'd like some here to help keep horse flies down.


----------



## LFRJ

We just butchered one AT a processors. I have a buyer and this will be our first commercial sale! :banana02: 

Turned out I had to do a lot of hand plucking though. The auto plucker was no match for those feathers. I'm told the younger ones may be easier. This fellow was 4 months or so.

Am sure glad he's gone too! He was determined to mate with something, ANYTHING! He followed me incessantly, grabbed my pantleg and hung on like a gila monster! I had to watch my back all the time. He tried with the hens. They were too fast. He tried with the rooster - didn't end well for him.

We recently hired some work men to rip out and replace the insulation from under the house. Apparently, deep under and dark was no deterrent for this duck. He surprised the heck out of them by wading in after. They had to push him off with their feet. They were relieved to hear when they returned the next weekend, that he had gone to freezer camp. Dressed out at 6.11 lbs! Not bad... but he sure was one _hunk-a, hunk-a burnin love_!


----------



## fixer1958

dunroven said:


> Yeah, I was wondering if you could reuse the wax. A lady on Agriseek told me about using wax.
> Now, how are you guys getting folks for the ethnic groups, if I may ask. I won't probably steal your market since we are far apart, but we have some here, I just don't know how to approach them and how much to ask for the birds from them?
> 
> Craigslist
> A few were just individuals wanting a few to get started.
> 
> I made a deal if they bought in bulk.
> One guy bought about 60 or so.
> Taught me a little about catching them also.
> Him and his partner could catch them 2 at a time on the run each.
> Awesome to watch.
> 
> $10 each if just a few.
> $7.50 if it was a lot.
> You may have to adjust your price in your area if you want to move them.
> 
> I didn't make much. May have covered my feed cost and the water to hose off all the duck crap on the back porch.


----------



## GrannyCarol

On processing ducks, instead of jeans, we've used traffic cones hung upside down. Don't know how well the large Muscovy drakes would fit - perhaps there are larger traffic cones out there? We scalded ours at 160 - 170 for a minute or so and they were easy to pluck, much easier than dry plucking. We dip them head first, might try feet next time and a friend suggested we rinse them off with a hose before we dip them, keeps the scald water a bit cleaner and opens up the feathers. 

I forgot about using the wax to finish them, I may have to look into that for the future. However, we only do a few a day, no commercial thing here, just family use, so there's not the big pressure to be done in a hurry. 

One of my friends with chickens had a USDA facility for her free range chickens. They showed me the traffic cone idea and slit the throat with a box knife - easy to keep a really sharp edge on. They scalded them in a turkey fryer also and used a drum type plucker. I watched them do turkeys and was amazed to see the feathers come off in just a few seconds. If I did a lot, I'd get or build a plucker for sure! 

They have a small trailer outfitted for sanitary processing, with a window to take the bird in one end and set up so the birds move through and are clean and processed at the other end. It's really quite slick. It's the only thing it's used for and has stainless counters and sink and can be closed up and left ready to go when they are done. Getting a small travel trailer and fitting it for a processing kitchen might be a really good choice so you don't have to modify your house and can keep this one small area sanitary.


----------



## Danaus29

I would be able to sell all the ducks I can raise to Whole Foods if I could find a state approved processor. Some pretty good money there.

Rabbits are easier because you can skin them. How to cook kidneys? My grandma told me you boil the pee out of them. LOL

I do sell ducks to a few Asians for $10 each. No room for profit at that price, considering all the labor I put into the ducks. The Asians use the blood to make a sauce so they want them live.


----------



## dunroven

Have you checked with your Department of Agriculture? I was told the closest USDA facility was in Ohio. Not sure where, but maybe you have some state ones that might be closer?

I found if they are poultry processors, they can tell you which ones do ducks and which ones absolutely won't touch them. I talked to about 12 processors here in Iowa, course all are state approved only and I need USDA


----------



## Danaus29

King & Sons is USDA approved, but they don't do ducks. Nobody in Ohio is USDA or even Ohio approved to do ducks. 

I need to contact King & Sons to see what they charge for turkeys. I really don't want to do them myself.

ETA, Joshie I would send you some via HTtransport but they would be stuck in limbo somewhere with the elf and his lady love.


----------

