The pond near our house is home to a lot of ducks. When we first moved to the area it was mostly mallard and black duck varieties, but the past few years have seen a dramatic shift to a muscovy duck population. They wander the neighborhood looking for food and places to nest. We have one particular male muscovy that I believe has claimed our house as his house. We call him our “guard duck”, so beware. 🙂
Actually the crazy thing with him is we joked about him being a guard duck, but he’s rather a large male and has become a bit too conditioned to us feeding him. He will fly directly at people in hopes they have food, and when you see big him with his large wingspan coming straight at you, it is intimidating the first time you see it. Certainly makes delivery guys and others visiting the house step back a bit. But no, I don’t consider him any sort of serious part of a home security plan; it’s just funny.
Within the past some weeks, we noticed a sudden upsurge in the number of muscovy’s that visit our house. We might have a dozen, given or take a couple, at one time. Of course, this makes for some interesting bird watching because they have rather interesting mannerisms, behaviors, and interactions with each other. I find myself just watching them for large stretches of time because well… I’d like to figure our what they’re doing, and I can do all of this watching from the comfort of my home.
For example, all of this head bobbing and tail wagging:
Exactly what makes one bob better than another bob? Whoa! Jim there was really bobbing his head something fierce today! better stay away from him! 🙂
Or we’ve recently observed female muscovy’s fighting. Much flapping and jumping about, then “tangling” up their necks in an attempt to get on the other one’s back. When the one female wins she essentially stands on and over the other (dominant position), much head bobbing ensues by her and others around her, but what’s really interesting is how the loser flattens herself on the ground and just lies there even tho there’s nothing truly holding her town.
Granted on the base level you can figure out what they’re doing, but I can’t help but wonder about the nuances in their behavior and what it’s actually communicating. It’s fascinating to watch.
Thing is, it’s hard to find anything online about behaviors. You find a lot about cooking them (supposedly very tasty), about raising them for food, maybe some basic information, and even found a whole website dedicated to them which was one of the better resources.
Stuff From Hsoi 
Good information. They seem to have their own personalities-not much different from people.
Luckily a pair of Muscovys has adopted our 5 acre wooded lake, and us. They’re wonderfully entertaining, and until the last few days were inseparable. Now, the male is often alone, and appears to be brooding. The female, at times flies in from across the lake, and when she does she is famished, ignores the male, aggressively eats (usually she feeds after the dominant male), and then flies back to the other side of the lake. We think she must be nesting. Has anyone observed wild muscovy nesting habits, and if so have you noticed whether the male separates from and has little interaction with the female.
We’ve had numerous female muscovy’s nest around our house. Every time it’s been the mother sitting on the nest and that’s that, as far as we can tell.
But we presently have a nest, and there’s a male (same one) that frequently sits right next to the nest, almost as if guarding the nest and the mother. Of course we can’t say for sure, don’t totally know motivations. But given how the 2 of them relate to each other at all times well… it seems that way.
We’re still trying to totally figure out their behavior… best we can say is they all have unique personalities and certainly can be “odd ducks” at times. Certainly fun to watch.
I live on a 5 acre land 😀 and have 5 ducks and 2 of them are Muscovy, 1 boy and 1 girl. Not very far from the house we have a swamp and the 2 of them usually go down there then they come back up to get food, but recently the female hasn’t come back Up but the drake does every few hours.. I don’t know if shes nesting but theres to much water to go looking through there. Hopefully she’ll come back home one day with some babies following her.
Well, this is mating time, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she did have some eggs to sit on. Give it a month or so and see if any extras show up. 🙂
I too have a gang of muscovy’s that hang around my back patio….may have something to do with the facts that there is a canal that runs behind the back of the house and I often toss them bread to eat. They are fascinating to watch and, like many animals, hard to figure out. I do not know what the head bobbing means or the tail wagging. I think the bobbing is a sign of threat or self-proclaimed superiority. I’m not sure. I often bob with them but they don’t pay much regard to my antics. Now, the sideways tail wagging is another thing. I can’t figure that out at all since it seems that both sexes do it (if only one, then I would think it would be some sign of sex signal). I tried wiggling my butt sideways the other night but my wife would have none of it. Now, regarding your description of “two females” one atop the other I am almost certain you are seeing one each of each sex and they are doing the deed. It’s quite awful to watch because the male is on top and, if in the water, he insists that the female head remain under water (guess he doesn’t like her to watch). She, on the other hand, fights like hell probably because she needs air!! What’s curious is that other ducks (I think males) always like to be nearby and watching…ah men, they’re the same everywhere. Well all this is quite ducky but that’s the extent of my muscovy observations.
They are quite unlike any other duck. Rather fun to watch.
The head bobbing and tail wagging… not 100% sure, but it’s a show of some sort. Dominance, mating, displays… seems to be used in all manner of ways.
But the two females atop… no, the particular instance I was writing about was in fact 2 females “fighting” and dealing with dominance issues. I can tell males vs. females without much trouble, and that’s why this instance stood out to us because I had never seen 2 females do that before. Sure, males fight all the time, and sure the males and females mate. But this was 2 females struggling for dominance and one clearly dominated the other.
I’ve seen the water situation too…. yes, the boys just don’t seem to care about the poor girl needing to breathe. They’re crazy animals. 🙂
Our females were fighting today just as you have observed however we noticed that the winner was the one that was mated today. We have 2 females and one male. Maybe they are simply preparing for who is the dominate one to see who will have babies. I am not sure. We expected them both but after today we are questioning how this all works.
I’ve adopted three, and had a five with one more forced on because he’s kind of the king of the hill. There are lots of them around my home, but the adoptees I’ve observed and treated much like I would a stray animal, that didn’t want to be full domesticated.
I’ve seen both types of behavior with regards to nesting, (not my hen, but my drake), watching over the nest, and then, an always solo female. Frankly, I was confounded as to what normal behavior actually is for the males role in nesting, which is what brought me here. 🙂
Right now, my first hen has had what I believe is her first “litter” if you will. She started with 15 ducklings, which as a small hen goes, I was floored. The mortality rate is terrible for the babies, but I guess that’s why they have so many. Lola, my brand new mother hen, was spending too much time close to a high traffic internal neighborhood road right across from my home which backs up to the road. She introduced her babies, the day I presume they were born, but I can’t say for sure. Then, she parked her family across the street with no cover, and hawks flying everywhere. I was mortified even though I know the realities, the thought of having to witness it was more than I could take, so I did my best to usher her back to the retention pond, but she kept coming back.
The third day, she was watching over her babies in a 3 inch pool of water, and a normal Florida deluge hit dropping what must have been 3 inches in a half hour and unfortunately, I wasn’t here at the time. That low water collection point is right next to a method to drain any excess water into the retention canals, and I guess the water rose too fast and sucked down 5 of her 15, maybe 6, but I didn’t ever see the 6th. I saw a pre-teen kid with a stick in his hand as I drove up and he was really close to Lola and her ducklings, so I stopped and asked him and his brother to back off her because she was panicked.
I quickly changed out of my work clothes, and rushed outside to see if the kids had heeded my request…more like directives, but regardless, I had misjudged the child, and as I walked up, his voice was choked up and on the verge of tears telling me what had happened. It’s at this point, I heard them and there were two pipes, one across the street, and one to the retention pond and the retention pond exit was blocked and has been for weeks by high water.
Anyway, Lola being “mine”, and the fear I could hear in the chicks cries, and momma’s panicked pacing, I moved the great. (By the way, those are really heavy, and the utilities department doesn’t like you doing what I’d done.). We weren’t sure what to do, but a utilities employee came up and told me I couldn’t move the grates, and I must have looked like a stricken “father” when I asked him to please look the other way and let me get these ducklings out of the pipe. God bless him because after a few seconds of shaking his head in the negative, he left.
A few minutes later, what I thought was the same truck, pulled up, and I thought I was going to jail because I wasn’t quitting. It was a different utilities employee, and he didn’t say anything other than I’d moved them the right way. He told me the only time he’d seen them saved, they had a fire hose and and hydrant close by, of which we had a hydrant, but no hose. The ducklings had swum towards the pond, and while I was talking to him, they swam back in to the middle section to quickly for me to net any of them.
Anyway, we tried to use water gravity and flow direction by me paddling for seemed forever with a flat head shovel, to no avail. At this point, we’d gained an audience and some limited assistance from neighbors. I was about 95% sure that all the ducklings were in the center section with no alternative but one side or the other as we’d blocked the long and dead end into the retention pond.
Ultimately, we were able to save four of the five by the seven year old (Mom looking on and helping) down in the retention grate squirting the water hose at the basketball and forcing them to swim to the other side. I caught one and rushed baby to mom, but at this point, Lola, who generally will eat out of my hand was not happy and she came at me as I released her baby.
I ran back and after several more passes of the basketball through the pipe 7 I think, we’d captured all but one and gotten them back with momma. She’d calmed considerably, but still was upset. The one remaining baby was side stepping the basketball, and I wasn’t sure what else to do after 3 attempts didn’t move the baby from the center. In fact, the baby was silent at this point, and I though we’d caused it to go in to shock or worse, but we kept trying. At this point, the original utilities truck pulled up, and they brought out a plug for tunnel we were blocking, inflated it, and used a short fire hose, as that was all they had, to shoot water across the ground and into the hole thereby filling it up. The duckling, which I was sure had died, wasn’t moving, but they finally got the angle of the fire hose right and the water level started rising rapidly. Within a few minutes, we had the last baby, and I’d put her in a bucket and run her to Lola, who was much happier at this point, though still shaken. I still don’t know if one of them ended up left behind, but I listened intently for any sound that might suggest the missing duckling were in there, and never heard anything.
Well, anyway, I got off on a major tangent, but I covered the grates with a finer mesh, and after my fifth gentle ushering of her and her family towards the retention pond, she disappeared for two days. I was worried, because even while nesting, I saw her for about 5 minutes daily when she’d come for her daily bread. I searched for about an hour and found her, and as of now, 10 days in, she’s only lost 3. I know that number will rise, but I have an unusual affection for these few ducks, and certainly for the babies.
Today, I went to the park where she’s taken shelter amongst other species and two geese, which I suspect scare away many hawks, and I found three punk 6-8 years olds throwing rocks at her. I like to lost my mind at how cruel that way and how cruel kids can be, but I chastised them, though they claim they were “feeding” them, they were hurling an 8 year old fast ball with a substantial splash of “food”…..uh huh, anyway, I explained to them that the mortality rate was 80% or higher, and I showed them the 5 circling hawks, the two great herons, and the 2 gray herons that would gladly make a meal of the ducklings, and tried to convince them that momma didn’t need any distractions from people. I think they understood at the end, but who knows.
Anyway, today, she’s still at 12 and was at 14 on day two so she’s adapting quickly and doing it well. I’ll keep doing what I can to keep her safe, and if she’d do it, I’d gladly let them bunk on my lanai at night, but I know that’s not their nature unless raised from babies, and she wasn’t much out of yearling stage when adopted, so I just have to accept that she’s not going to have but 2 or 3 if she’s lucky at the end.
*****************
Sorry….can you tell I’m attached? 🙂 I’ve not even told you about my other kids…. but I suspect that the drake I hae seen guarding momma and the nest is a partial mallard. i know that a pure Peaking/Mallard or whatever, can bread with a a Muscovy, but the off-spring are sterile. That said, I wonder if there’s been some Muscovy that are less than 50% that can reproduce, because the momma in her nest now and “Ryan” (My fiance named him that because he’s the most handsome duck we have), doesn’t look like the rest of the Muscovy and if he’s a mix, he’s not pure because I’m sure he’s not just hanging out by the nest every day for hours for fun, so had to have ‘fertilized” this batch of eggs.
Anywho, they’ve got great personalities, (FOR THE MOST PART), and they communicate what I believe is happiness, warning, dominant behavior, submissive behavior through different actions. They speak to each other and to me, and the hens have coos that are general coos and others that are clearly “give me some bread” coos. The drakes will come to my door and pull on the frond of a small palm tree I have outside the door of my lanai to get my attention. The hens when, the drakes are absent, will fly in small four feet off the ground circles to call me out to feed them. i seem to better understand all the time what they are saying to me…not necessarily to each other.
Wonderful story! Thank you for sharing.
Yes, it’s very easy to get attached to these guys. They have an amazing amount of personality, and it’s so hard to not fall in love with them.
You did a wonderful thing, to rescue and care for them. Can’t save them all… yes, the hawks and herons and turtles and so on have to eat as well (thus why the babies are so numerous). But some will always make it through. The ones that hatched in our front bushes are almost full grown now… still with mom, wing feathers probably just a couple more weeks until they are full. Of the 14, only 7 remain, which is actually a pretty good survival rate. The couple “hatchings” prior to that one tho? all 40-some ducklings eaten… hawks mostly (we saw numerous snatchings). I figured the hawks would have cleaned this one out too, but momma (Diamond, as the kids have named her) is one heck of a momma… very watchful, very attentive.
Take good care of them. They love black oil sunflower seeds. 🙂
I raised 12 baby ducks because their mother was killed. They are 6 mo. old and my homeowners association is going to call bug busters to come and get them! I need to find my 4 girls a home fast. Please help!!!!
The best I can say is to look for animal rescues or sanctuaries in your area.. maybe even greater area like up to a 2-3 hour drive away. Here in Austin they do have a wild animal rescue, there may be something of the sort in your area. You’re just going to have to scour and get resourceful.
Good luck.
My little rascals ( muscovy ducklings ) keep yanking/pulling feathers off their siblings even after they had just their meals? just can’t figure out what they’re trying to do. someone said maybe overcrowding, too little food. my muskies are over a month old and are well feed off and a nice dog house for a comfy brood house. could somebody tip me what to do. thanks and there will be more ducklings to come in about 40 days.
Hrm. Haven’t seen that behavior. Don’t have much to offer. Sorry. 😦
Thanks hsoi. Out of 24 ducklings it’s now down to only 4 pieces left. All that i tossed to my rotts are skinned from the tail down almost to their underbelly. These guys are so ferocious towards each others. Once they get a chance they bite/pull/yank feathers until they skinned off their siblings. I just had another 11 ducklings hatched a week ago and if i observe this same behaviour on this group though i like them, i’ve no choice but to discontinue raising them. thank you very much.
Wow. Crazy and sad to hear.
You know, try contacting Tobi Kosanke of Crazy K Farm. http://www.crazykfarm.com
She might have some insight.
Will do. thanks a lot.