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| an old paint tray makes a good first pond for young ducklings |
Every year we vow and declare, no more ducks! We’ve just
gone from six ducks to fifteen with a further twelve to go. Unfortunately we
put two mother ducks together in the same seven by three metre pen, and
Nibbler, our original duck, first broke the legs of two of the ducklings, and then killed them. They have a divided pen these days.
Duck soup, duck pies, roast duck, they’re back on the menu. At least for Trev and Cal, but I still can’t quite go there.
4 comments:
But Linda........ ducks have to be the easiest meat of all to grow yourself!
We have nine Muscovies right now, one's ready for the AGA, and another four are not far behind... can't wait.
The only downside is the plucking... aaargh that down's a bugger to pull out!
Mike
We do eat them, but, apart from the feather plucking nuisance, we have a theory about death to meal ratio. The theory: one death for a couple of meals, with say a duck, does not stack up against one sheep for numerous meals.
The ethics of eating meat are complex (especially around here).
My 8 year old son is the duck keeper of the family. He has 22 khaki campbells at the moment. They roam the paddocks during the day and have a well built pen for night. We love the eggs we receive and my son does like to eat the occasional one. Knowing they were raised with love and my son prepares and cooks the duck for himself and his siblings helps me with the meat eating ethics. And yes they are an extreme pain to pluck. Any ideas? I have been told to soak the duck in a bucket of cold water and then scald in a bucket of hot water. Has anyone tried this before? Have even had a suggestion of 'skinning' the duck!
"Pluk-a-duck" is indeed a real pain.... Serge said to me a while ago he puts detergent in the hot water he soaks them in. I forgot about it until I was half way through plucking the last one I killed last week... apparently the detergent reduces the water's surface tension allowing the heat to actually reach the skin through all that down...
I've also been procrastinating on the issue of making a plucking machine like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NchEElyckzg
and there are countless youtube clips on how to make one.....
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