Muscovy Ducks for meat

[bluewater rangerbreds]

Has anyone processed Muscovy ducks for meat? I just finished putting my first two in the Freezer. My question is about the "plucking VS skinning" I've seen a lot of different comments all over the net about Muscovy's being harder to pluck and many people just skin them. I had that same experience today. I started attempting to pluck the first bird and the second one we went straight to skinning it. We were able to pluck and process 3 chickens in the same amount of time it took us to partially pluck the first Muscovy.
The water was hot enough for all of the poultry but those ducks were a pain to pluck. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[secuono]

I skin all my birds, I just don't have time to pluck all those feathers and then they get everywhere and it looks like 10 birds blew up and feathers are everywhere for weeks...ugh...

 

[Royd Wood]

Tried to pluck 2 a few years back - Took hours and swore never again.
We need the skin on so we send around 200 free range Muscovy to a processor each Fall. The meat is wonderful as a traditional roast or another good way is on the rotisserie with a tray of your fav veggies underneath

 

[BeccaJoVon]

At what age do you process Muscovy, what do you think is the average dressed weight, and how much breast meat should there be?

I'm new to this. :/ Can you tell?

 

[Royd Wood]

At what age do you process Muscovy, what do you think is the average dressed weight, and how much breast meat should there be?

I'm new to this. :/ Can you tell?

Around 7 to 9 months - girls around 3 - 5 lb and boys 5 - 9 lb (free range not barn)
Muscovy ducks produce lots of meat which is just so good, and plenty of meat elsewhere not just the breast

 

[BeccaJoVon]

At what age do you process Muscovy, what do you think is the average dressed weight, and how much breast meat should there be?

I'm new to this. :/ Can you tell?

Around 7 to 9 months - girls around 3 - 5 lb and boys 5 - 9 lb (free range not barn)
Muscovy ducks produce lots of meat which is just so good, and plenty of meat elsewhere not just the breast

Thank you!

 

[Farmlady]

Kinda late, but we raise Muscovy (free range, just some supplemental grains over the winter) for meat. The first few we processed were a nightmare! It took us about an hour per duck to pluck them. We built a chicken plucker (ala Whiz bang style). It works great for the chickens, not so great for the ducks ~ still about a half hour or so to finish plucking them.

Then I tried wax. Plain old Gulf Wax sold with canning supplies. Cha-ching! I added the wax to their bubble bath (scalding water with a hefty squirt of Dawn), dunked them straight into a second pot of water and ice, and three minutes later we were done! Now I use the wax for all of our ducks, and what started out as a nightmare is not much worse than a day doing extra roosters or bunnies.

We generally have 60-70 a year, and to be honest, we've just about stopped buying any beef other than a few roasts and steaks. When I package them, the breast meat is packed for mini roasts, we grind a good bit, and I pack up pieces to cook as 'beef tips'.

The plus side is that we have no rodents or snakes, very few bugs, and healthy meat that is tender like beef and as lean as venison. The only down side are the piles (mountains lol) of poo on our deck that need to be hosed off daily. I guess I could pen them up, but they would never grow as big. Some of our drakes have dressed out to 11-14 pounds. Since we're getting older, sticking to the Muscovies rather than a steer that would be difficult for us to handle works out pretty well.

 

[boothcreek]

I found dry plucking so much easier with the scovies then doing it with the water. Done 30 drakes and a few hens this year. I think I only deboned 3 drakes that just didn't want to pluck no matter what. I like to keep the skin intact cause we make some nice deboned, stuffed and rolled duck roasts for special occasions, yummy! Geese dry pluck so much nicer too.

 

[lcertuche]

I've heard that muscovy meat is really good. There is a local woman that sells them here but I have to wait until I have extra money to buy them and build a new coop to house them. Anyway they are on my wishlist.