Awhile back my Muscovy duck population got ahead of me and I ended up with a lot of ducks that were a little past a good eating age. Last weekend I sold a bunch to a vet, she will be using them to train young border collie pups to herd. I know this vet, and she guaranteed me the ducks would not be abused in any manner. The pups are quite young, and apparently when goats are used for training, the goats tend to thump on the pups pretty hard. The Muscovies are rather slow, generally don't try to fly, and are fairly easy to bunch up and move. (I also know if a smaller dog gets hold of one, the ducks are pretty adept at defending themselves, LOL. I have a very feisty terrier who can attest to that.) Just thought if some of you were looking for other ways to market ducks, you might check this idea out.

-- Lenette (kigervixen@webtv.net), March 05, 2001

Answers

Our local border collie farm uses muscovies for puppy training, graduating them to geese, sheep and goats. If yo want your dog to work cattle, they graduate to another farm with cattle.

It is a very good system of training as the pups learn to only use as much force as neccessary. My old(long gone) dog was trained with muscovies and could work any animals safely. My next dog was trained on range cattle and while he was very, VERY good at cattle, he was dangerously rough on anything smaller.

-- Laura (gsend@hotmail.com), March 05, 2001.