Muscovy Hybrid?

[Gamebird7]

How can I tell if my drake is a muscovy cross? His mother was pure magpie and father was either 1 of 2 muscovy drakes or a pekin/rouen cross drake. He's on a 2 acre pond with about 20 other ducks: 1 pr pekins, 2 pr flying mallards, and the rest are pretty much muscovy hens. The hens are from the same group of birds as he is only their mom was a pure muscovie and when she started laying in an open chicken pen in the big yard I kind of closed her out of the pen and "managed" who would have liberties with her. The drake was hatched in the pen under a pure magpie hen and he looks exactly like his mom except he's about twice her size. He's really aggressive and pretty much the only drake that can service the muscovy hens besides the pekin but he's a sissy and he barely ever even breeds his girlfriend (pekin) and mostly just stands there and lets the magpie take care of it. Anyway, I've had 4 or 5 of the muscovy hens set on clutches and haven't had a single baby, granted a couple of them had predator problems, but for the most part all the eggs ended up being rotten. Is there any sure way to tell if he's half muscovy just by looking at him. He looks like a really big pure magpie (his mom was a little bigger than the size of a standard mallard) and I thought that the pekin/rouen cross was his dad because doesn't look like a muskovy at all, but he seems to be the main breeder drake on the pond and I've witnessed him, "take care of business" with the hens that had set, multiple times. I have a pure rouen hen that he only leaves when he goes of to commit adulterous acts but other than that, that is his main girl. So should I wait till spring and try to hatch some of her eggs and see if it's the muscovy hens that are the problem or is his track record already too much to the bad and go ahead and put him in a much colder environment.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Chad in S. TX

[gospelplayer16]

can u post a pic? i could probly tell from that.

[Evy]

I can't follow all the rambling in that post, but the simple answer is that if the duck was a Magpie & the drake a Muscovy , the offspring is a mule ( mutt, sterile cross ). Long claws would be a clue. No fertile eggs a bigger clue. From the sound of things, they're all crosses anyway.

[goosedragon]

I pretty much agree with Evy, Besides the claws, take a look at the wing shape (Muscovy have short, broad wings) and the tail (Broad with no curled dake feathers) There is a difference in the top of the bill too but I can't think of a easy way to describe it. ~gd

[Gamebird7]

Like I said in my rambling, he looks just like a pure magpie only about twice the size of his pure magpie mother. Thanks for the tips. I'll have to catch him up and look at his wings and feet. He does have the curled tail feathers. I was just wondering if a muscovy cross looks more like a mallard-derived or a muscovy. And, also, if the hen is a muscovy and the drake a mallard-derived, will the offspring be mules?

Hope I didn't carry on too much.

Thanks again

[Gamebird7]

P.S. Evy, he's pretty much the only cross on the pond besides 2 magpie/mallard crosses but he is the most aggresive drake out there so I think it would be valuable to know if he is shooting blanks, hence the ?'s.