Dominican Ducks Are Bigger ...Why

maybe its a mislabeled goose ! You should be free to experiment with the bird of your choice as long as both parties agree

The Biggest Ducks in the World

mike l said:

big birds that are frozen but are twice the size of the long island type.

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Probably imported from TEXAS... :cheeky:

donP

read the label again. maybe it says PAVO instead of PATO?

They may be what is commonly called "Chinese" ducks?
Hey, everything is Chinese here anyways, right?

In Europe you'd mostly see these ducks:


From Italian seasonal construction workers, I heard that, while they're small, they are quite delicious.

Here and in most of South America, I have mostly only seen what they called Pato "Chino", something similar to this guy here:


They are B I G G E R, but since we don't have any Italian seasonal construction workers around, I can't tell you how good...
... J-D.

There are many kinds of ducks out there. I'm not clear if by Long Island ducks, you mean the kind you see in ponds or the ones you see frozen in supermarkets. Ducks, like chickens, are bred to be either egg layers or for meat. The duck in the movie, Babe, was an Indian Runner and is bred for egg laying. But there are breeds such as Aylesbury that are bred for meat and they get much bigger than the egg laying breeds. Mallards, which are the most common wild duck you see in the US, are more of a general breed so they are bigger than egg layers and smaller than meat breeds. It would not surprize me if they are raising Muskovies in the DR since they are tropical in origin and are very hearty.

If you are saying the duck in the stores are smaller, it could just be that their weight is the size that sells and that younger ducks sell better. The Pekin duck is also ready for market in just under two months, so it is prob smaller than other meat breeds.

Duck breast is my favorite cut of meat. I normally make a diagonal tic-tac-toe cut across the breast(with skin) grill it to render most of the fat, then finish it in the oven and serve it with bacon as a garnish.

Here’s a photo of my ducks.



I am pretty sure they are standard DR variety because it doesn’t look like any of the ducks pictured above.

There are two males with a female in the middle. The males get pretty big; they prefer to eat corn and lots of it. You can gauge their size using the rusty door hinge as a reference.:ermm:

Very tasty little guys and the eggs are great too!!!

Peter, are these Muskovies or a Brand “X” Duck?

They look like Muskovies. Muskovies are known for being good parents and having large clutches. They are normally not as talkative as other ducks(the males hiss sometimes) and as the OP mentioned, they may not be true ducks since hybrids with other breeds are usually sterile, but are grouped with them as a convenience.

A quote from my copy of "Raising the Home Duck Flock"

Muskovies are highly prized for their meat and are easier to pick than true ducks.... We have found that when their meat is used in stews it is hard to distinguish from beef, while cured and smoked Muskovy is similar to lean ham

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They say males get to 10 pounds and hens to about 5 pounds. They are not as good swimmers as other duck types, but are very good at foraging.

I got the book when I was considering getting some ducks myself. It is tome of great wisdom and I recommend it to anyone raising ducks.

Now I'd like to try some grilled Muskovy...

Thanks Peter.

This makes a lot of sense to me now. I had been replacing males in the group because none of them could, err, get the job done with the females. So this information about potential sterile males is great news. The current male I have does not seem to be sterile, and because of that he will not end up in my pot.

As I said, these ducks like corn, but the point you make about them being good foragers is also true. They can easily sustain themselves by eating whatever they can find; mostly bugs. They don?t like to bathe very much, but do like the pond because they eat the bugs that live in the algae.

To the OP, try a fresh, non frozen DR duck. They sell them in most places in DR that sell fresh chickens etc. There?re fantastic !!!

Here is the book I've been referencing:

Amazon.com: Raising the Home Duck Flock (9780882661698): Dave Holderread, Millie Holderread: Books

The author did some field studies on raising ducks on Puerto Rico. He was able to raise them just on food scrapes, though their egg production was not as good as with feed. Seems to me that duck/rice system would be a good idea for the DR/Haiti.

J D Sauser said:

They are B I G G E R, but since we don't have any Italian seasonal construction workers around, I can't tell you how good...

... J-D.

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Nothing washes down a Confit of Duck Breast and Sausage Cassoulet better than a nice vintage Ducksplatt Vino Tinto.