From Farm to Table in 48 Hours

Last Friday we decided it was time to butcher one of our male Muscovy ducks. He was quite mischievous and constantly getting out of our duck fencing which caused all the other ducks to follow. They then would head to our garden and eat everything in sight; my poor green beans never stood a chance. So his time had come, he had a good life, but it was butchering day.

Steve bought whats called a 'kill cone' that he installed on the side of our duck coop. This helped assist him once he got the duck wrangled up. You place the duck upside down in the cone and pull their head through an opening at the bottom. This helps keep the duck calm and in return, helps you from not having to hold the duck down causing unnecessary stress on everyone. Muscovy ducks also have HUGE claws on their feet so the kill cone helped keep Steve from getting scratched by the massive talons. Once ready, Steve took his butchering knife and made two slits on the sides of the neck. This caused the duck to bleed out fairly quickly. The upside to butchering ducks is you don't have to shoot the animal, you really don't need more than one person to help, and ducks do not weigh more than 15+ pounds. It definitely was a lot easier than butchering the pigs.

Muscovy Claws

After the duck had bled out, Steve took it to a table that we had set up in the backyard. The next step was to pluck the mature flight feathers and then to scald the duck to pluck the smaller softer feathers. This required my assistance to get the giant pot of boiling water going and brought outside once ready. Steve and I feel that the hardest part of butchering ducks would probably have to be plucking the feathers. It is not easy to get them out, it's time consuming, and there are a lot of feathers. Scalding the duck really helps this process go quicker but having to butcher more than one duck would require a lot more effort. After the feathers were plucked, Steve cut the feet and head off and began to gut the duck. By this point, the meat wasps and flies had become quite annoying so we took the duck inside to finish up.

Once inside the house, Steve had to be extremely careful about gutting the duck; if the intestines/bladder ruptured, it risked contaminating the meat. He did a great job though and was able to get all the insides out without compromising the meat. At this point, Steve felt confident enough to not need the butchering book we reference to for help. He knows how to cut down a whole chicken, so at this point, it was very similar. We ended up having to skin the duck since the skin was somewhat messed up but the meat looked mighty tasty! Duck meat is dark and honestly looks like beef meat. We were very excited to try the meat out but had to chill the meat in the fridge for the rest of the day.

On a side note, it was awesome having pigs to help eat up all the extras and guts that we would have otherwise thrown away. Plus, we were happier to let them have duck this way, rather than to have a stray duck wander into their pen like last time. Pigs are glorious garbage disposals and they ate the duck parts up in seconds; crazy, but amazing nonetheless.

The next day, we were only able to cut the duck up into the breasts, legs, and wings since we had family pictures and plans. The pigs also ate the carcass, bones and all. I dunno about you, but seeing a pig crunch through bones is a good way to get that "pigs are so sweet" mentality crushed (literally) into a thousand pieces; but I digress. Sunday finally came and Steve decided the best way to cook the duck meat would be to grill it. If I had to describe to you what duck meat tastes like it would be very comparable to sirloin steak but with the texture of chicken. Strange to me at first, it paired very nicely with bacon grease and a side of bacon. We aren't shy to fat, in fact, we eat mainly a low-carb, moderate protein, high fat diet so more often than not, we smother our protein with bacon fat. It's divine!

So I'm sure y'all are wondering what will be the fate of the rest of the Muscovy's? Well, we actually aren't planning on butchering any more ducks. In fact, we are wanting to harvest eggs from the females and potentially start breeding the ducks for future use; thus, the reason we are keeping the last two males (unless one decides he wants to die). I hear duck eggs are the bomb so I'm looking forward to finding eggs while out tending to the ducks. Plus, by killing one of the males, we help the females out by having one less male attack them to do their "breeding duties". That's putting that lightly, but it is actually kind of sad seeing the males mount the females. They are mean and pin them down and bite at their necks even if the female is not fighting back. It's also a constant, multiple times a day thing, and so having one less male will help alleviate that issue.

Ultimately, this was another one of those humbling experiences for us. We always treat our animals with respect and want them to have happy, healthy lives. In return, they provide us with sustenance and a full belly. I'm also comforted knowing that if anything bad (aside from the horrible way factory farm animals are treated) were to happen to the food chain in America, at least we could provide our family with food. It really is liberating knowing that we didn't have to go to the store to get our meat and that our meat came from a happy and healthy animal. I'm always curious about how others would treat eating meat if they actually had to raise and butcher animals themselves. I'm not saying that if you eat meat from the store you're a bad person; but more or less, would the attitude about fast, quick, and cheap meat be changed all together. Personally, I feel that we should be teaching this generation and future generations how to raise/butcher animals. It's such a viable and important component of life. I mean think about it, you have to eat three times a day, every day, for 365 days a year. That's a lot meat in the long run (unless you don't eat meat, but I feel sorry for you if so-meat is DELICIOUS). But it's important to play a part in how you consume meat.

Anyways, we're happy we were able to successfully butcher our first duck and look forward to continuing this backyard homesteading adventure.

Until next time, y'all!

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"Too often, parents whose children express an interest in farming squelch it because they envision dirt, dust, poverty, and hermit living. But great stories come out of great farming."

-Joel Salatin-