how to dress a domestic duck

To learn how to perfectly roast a duck, start with Step 1 below. Today I am getting ready for hip replacement surgery. Every dollar contributed enables us to keep providing high-quality how-to help to people like you. With ducks as well as chickens I have a block of wood with two nails driven in to it to hold the head still. Although I do want to support them, I find I don’t really enjoy beef so much these days and the pork is raised with regular GMO corn…so I want to get away from that too. Now I just need to look up good skinless recipes, to better honor the sacrifice. One of the worst is stuffing doves or pheasants into a rubber-lined game pocket and leaving them there to "cook," and perhaps spoil, by the end of the day. Your misses will go away do to bird movement. Always sharpen your knives before you get started. If you plan to cook your duck rather than preserve it, let it sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours so the muscle tissue will be tender. I’ve never seen one lay without the intent to hatch, and they seem to have around 3 clutches of eggs each summer, of around 10 to 15 eggs at a time. I have never been able to kill one because they are like pats, but I have to get over it. I feel that the most humane method is to decapitate the bird with a hatchet or ax. Then return the bird to the oven to cook for another 5 to 7 minutes at 400 °F (204 °C), until it is dark brown in color. Thanks for the information! Hi Bill, You have successfully joined our subscriber list. Happy New Year from England. Most ducks purchased at a store will be frozen and should be thawed in the original wrapper in the refrigerator. Greta (male) has some genetic balding too so he’s gonna be the one to go. Thanks for the idea…it’s been rolling around in my noggin for a while too! Hi Dr. Dan…I think that there are quite a few people who believe that their perspective is the only correct way to view the world. If I hadn’t helped my Dad butcher chickens when I was a kid, I think it would have been much more difficult to do. I have had to delete comments and block several militant vegans who told me that I should be killed the way that I kill my poultry. Hi! Learn how your comment data is processed. Carefully cut down — angling the blade towards the boney keel to remove all the meat — until you reach the breastbone. Wash the feet and press down on the abdomen while rinsing with the hose to force any feces in the vent out and wash it away. How nice of your neighbor! Pluck as much as you can and then use duck wax to remove all the down. And thanks so much for hosting such a great party! There have been times when I realized that my knives weren’t sharp enough, and stopping to hone the blades was quite a nuisance. Then, place the duck on the second lowest rack in the oven, breast-side up, for 1 hour. Its hard work, but worth it for the tasty meat. My neighbor isn’t very understanding…gets upset by a feather in his grass . For the initial processing I plan to do it the same as a wild harvested duck. Otherwise since I’m doing it alone this year, I’m doing chickens two or three at a time. Add a photo to this gallery Add a photo to this gallery Before roasting a duck, preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit while you remove the giblets and use a sharp paring knife to score the fat. My beautiful five month old Rouen drake is too aggressive for the littler ladies and eats a LOT! the best I could find was https://www.cconly.com/processing/ez_duck_wax 10lb slabs for $38 with free shipping. Hi Cathy, Instead of using a glaze, you can simply serve the roasted duck with a sauce on the side (recipes can be found below). I had a duck that had bumble foot and I was able to perform minor surgery on her foot to clean out the infection. I know that Native Americans have done this, but I haven’t studied their methods. After trying to pluck them by hand and also trying to pluck them using our handy dandy chicken plucker machine (love that thing!) As you state, it’s one thing to pull a trigger, quite another to be that close. If the duck gravy doesn’t come out thick enough, make up a little more of the flour/broth mix and stir in as the pot boils. Using your fingers, pinch the vent shut and pull the intestines out and away from the carcass to prevent spilling the contents on the meat. My daughter sent me this link today. Thank you, Liz! I have a small hobby farm, and I’m raising chickens and rabbits. We plan to smoke the duck it’s about 4.5 months old, is it going to be tough ? I’m sharing this post for those who would like to process their own ducks for meat. Drakes when young go at Mating like a bull at a gate but when they get older they aquire manners and are very romantic , they talk they head bob and take there time. ( I can't kill them. Reduce the heat, add the remaining ingredients and simmer until the glaze becomes thick and bubbly. Best wishes! They are pretty much full size, but still young and they are easier to pluck at this point also. Where abouts do you live? I’m going to use a turkey lung flush valve that hooks to a garden hose so I get the insides as clean as possible. I have butchered many ducks much older than your drakes. Next, you should find the heart and possibly the crop and trachea. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. Yours is the best how-to I’ve seen yet, but wanted to share a tip someone else mentioned: if you put the already butchered birds and the offal, into two separate buckets of cool water, you will greatly reduce the yellow jacket problem. Do your best not to rupture the green gall bladder attached to the liver. I have 7 ducks, 4 of them are drakes. The steps that you wrote were very clear, yet concise, and allowed me not to have to refer to my phone after each part. If you purchase gloves from a pharmacy or Costco you won’t have to worry about getting bleach on your hands and then you will know that everything is very sanitary. If you have a pressure cooker, that will make the meat the most tender. Remove the feet with clippers. Where do you buy the duck wax? That’s good to know re the gall bladder. After the third hour, prick the fat and turn the duck breast-side down and return to the oven for the final hour of roasting. I’m sorry to hear that the other two didn’t survive, but I’m glad you were able to get them to go in at night. Now, use the knife to remove any excess skin on either side of the cavity. They eat grass and cause little damage in the garden. I think I’d like to try that because they are such a pain to pluck. 10.5 feet ... though you can place them lower if the water level in your duck's living area does not get that high. Skinning is easier than plucking. By using our site, you agree to our. I’ve done it both ways and I think that severing the spinal column is the most humane way. Great tutorial, the photos are really helpful, we don’t have any ducks, but we did three rooster on the weekend. Some people suggest giving them a clutch of another ducks eggs to hatch, because some breeds don’t set on a nest well. Lisa you did a very good job of explaining and showing step by step of butchering duck,thank you.Now I need help on cooking part ,some say meat is Creasy is this true and what to do to give it a better flavor. You can. If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. Your instructions made it very straightforward and it wasn’t nearly as messy as anticipated. Thanks for sharing! Thank you again. Strangely enough I just stepped outside to bottle feed a couple of calves and 2 of my geldings came running by, unfortunately one of my year old muscovy drakes stepped out in front of them. It isn’t easy for me to kill ducks either. I remove the end of the wings rather than mess around with trying to pull the feathers out. I saw a lady try this once and I was horrified…it was definitely not humane the way she did it. I’m glad that this is helpful…I know it isn’t easy, especially when you haven’t done it before. Someone else said some aging helps that, but in my experience, I have found the opposite to be true. I will try to pluck them – and I will get some wax beforehand. Once the bird is dead, it isn’t that difficult to butcher a duck. Also duck wax makes the job of cleaning the carcass so much easier. The lungs are embedded in the rib cage and are a bit harder to pull out. We did the ducks first, and we did pluck them. Hi Tom, . I have never had a problem with excessive amounts of blood in the carcass after decapitating a bird. If your ducks have their wings clipped, you can build a ramp up to the nest box. I do not judge others for their lifestyle choices. Once the oven reaches 400 °F (204 °C), place the duck back in the oven, breast-side up and roast for 10 more minutes. I was raised in an Iowan farming family but I’ve never been the hand that harvested. I do know paraffin has a higher melting point so the water will have to be hotter before it melts. If you want to learn homesteading skills, like raising chickens and preserving the harvest for winter, you’ve come to the right place. You do lose a little wax with each bird but you can recapture most of the wax by remelting the feather/wax mix and filtering it. If the fertilizer hits the fan people like Becca will be begging us to feed them. There was quite a bit of fat in the bottom of the pan, but I didn’t think that the meat tasted greasy. Basically, I make a pot of duck meat with gravy…just like you would do with chicken gravy for biscuits. - Call ducks are dear little things – weighing less than a kilo and available in a range of colours. It is a Mallard and I read somewhere that yes, hanging can help losen feathers, as you suspect. If you find that you can’t bring yourself to killing your drakes, maybe you could list them for sale on Craigslist? Hi Lisa. Even so, it still isn’t easy for me to kill an animal. Other hunters might field dress a bird, let it hang for a couple of days, then try to dry-pluck it. Thanks so much for the compliment! They do sex their birds for an additional $1.50 per bird. If this happens, get over it and make the second chop as quickly as you can to prevent any more suffering than necessary. A lot of recipes include stuffing poultry, although it is not necessary. Roast the duck for 10 more minutes at this higher temperature to crisp the skin. But I originally ordered them for meat ducks and I knew that 20 of them were more than I needed! Thanks for sharing! I do so love the skin on, but if he is hard to pluck, he gets skinned. I don’t have Goanas…would that be Australia? Can you keep Pasture-Raised Ducks for Eggs and Meat? I’m in the exact same scenario as you were… how did it go for you? Just mix them into the pot with the broth and meat when you first start cooking (if they are already cooked you won’t need to cook the pot longer, if they are raw you will need to cook longer). Get your chickens off my lawn! It isn’t easy, but I completely understand your feelings about being self-reliant! I’m trying Muscovy’s for meat this year. Now, use your fingers to pull the meat away from the keel to allow easier access. Thank you for stopping by and letting me know. I haven’t made a pot pie in forever. The wax will be a hard coating at this point. For those of you who do not hunt, keep in mind all this works with domestic ducks and geese just as well as it does with the birds we bring home from the marsh. And although I like knowing that I’m cleaning any e coli, etc off my hands, I decided to forgo the bleach. (Really, really fast.) Great straightforward info. Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings. I have a post for butchering chickens too. Thanks for reading…I hope you are able to get the duck numbers down to the level you’d like. Thanks for writing from the UK! If you dunk the heads in scalding water they should pluck just like the rest of the duck. Have you tried giving them smaller tubs of water and work your way up to the pond? I’ll be going to pick them up in person. Add the orange juice and sage to a saucepan and boil over a high heat until approximate 1/4 cup of liquid remains. I put over 100 duck eggs in the freezer this past year, and have no idea how many we ate! That black duck I mentioned is a male that is a bit on the older side, so he will probably be going into some duck soup. A duck can be ready for butchering anywhere from 7 weeks to 6 months. I haven’t used the duck feet very many times, but I usually do use the chicken feet when making stock…it really gels up the stock nicely and I know it is more nutritious. I’m sorry to hear about your duck. Rinse off any remains bits of wax. Nothing wrong with the flavor, but I am wishing I took the time and effort to pluck these older ducks when I butchered them. It leaves you with a nice clean carcass. Hope that helps. After 1 hour, flip the duck over, prick it to release the fat, and roast it for another hour. I use this on Canadian Geese, one of my geese was banded 18 months as a gosling before I took it and the product worked just fine. I also appreciate the small bits of advice you give, such as preparing for yellow jackets, which are a menace where I live. It makes a very big difference when you have everything ready before you start. {"smallUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikihow.com\/images\/thumb\/3\/3c\/Roast-a-Duck-Step-1.jpg\/v4-460px-Roast-a-Duck-Step-1.jpg","bigUrl":"\/images\/thumb\/3\/3c\/Roast-a-Duck-Step-1.jpg\/aid1355607-v4-728px-Roast-a-Duck-Step-1.jpg","smallWidth":460,"smallHeight":306,"bigWidth":728,"bigHeight":485,"licensing":"