Though it was hardly a masculine name, I couldn’t help but refer to our male Cayuga as “Lisa Frank Duck.”
He may have looked like a simple black duck in the shadows, but as soon as he waddled into a shaft of sunlight, a dazzling array of rainbow hues burst across his glossy feathers. And like his take-a-second-look plumage, the Cayuga duck breed is deserving of time in the limelight. These ducks are useful, fascinating, and beautiful to boot!
A Bit of Cayuga Duck History
The origins of these beetle-black, black-footed and black-billed ducks is a little cloudy. The general consensus, though it is not substantiated and often debated, is the Cayuga is an American breed derived from a wild population of Black ducks in Cayuga County, New York (hence the name).
The males display the curled sex feather that is indicative of some mallard origins, however, so even though that feature doesn’t help clarify their genetic backgrounds, at least it makes the adults easy to sex.
They were raised on large farms as a premier meat breed until the light-feathered (and therefore, easier to process) Pekin punted it from its throne in the 1890s.
Related Post: Raising Pekin Ducks
That loss of popularity made Cayuga numbers spiral downward for several decades, but it seems this breed is (thankfully) not headed the way of the dodo. Formerly a threatened breed, the Cayuga got promoted to the “watch” list of the Livestock Conservancy — a hopeful sign that waterfowl keepers around the world are seeing the beauty and utility of this fascinating duck.
Cayugas on the Homestead
A source of huge, nutrient-dense eggs, companionship, meat, down, and manure, these birds have a lot to offer the homestead willing to give them a home.
Eggs
Duck eggs are huge, dwarfing even large-sized chicken eggs. When cooked, they make a firmer texture then hen eggs, making them perfect for baked goods. Cayugas lay about 100 to 150 of these delectable delights in a year. Many resources will tell you that the Cayuga hen will lay black eggs, and while this is sometimes true, I imagine that many folks will share my experience and get olive-hued eggs instead.
They were no less beautiful, however! If you enjoy unusual egg colors and do end up with a black egg-layer, enjoy it while it lasts. As the season progresses, her eggs will get lighter and lighter, ending up a near white color by the time she stops laying for the fall.
Related Post: Chicken Breed Guide
Unlike many domesticated ducks, Cayugas can be fairly good mothers and may brood their own eggs. There are few things cuter than the sight these shadowy-black, peeping ducklings following after their Mamma duck through the clover!
Meat
I never butchered any of my Cayugas, so I can’t speak from experience. However, Slow Food USA reports ” Although it is difficult to clean and prepare, it has very high-quality meat with an intense beefy flavor. The breast, while smaller than that of other more conventional duck breeds, produces a succulent deep red meat with a complex taste.”
Males usually reach 8 pounds, and females grow to about 7 pounds at maturity. If you do butcher your own birds, consider saving their beautiful down for use in homemade pillows.
Manure
Duck manure is a hugely valuable soil-amendment for the garden. Unlike chicken manure, which needs to be composted, duck manure is “cold” which means it can be applied straight to the soil you’re enriching.
Companionship
Personality-wise, the Cayuga is docile and quite friendly if raised from a duckling. Even though I bought mine as adults, they still ran up to me when I called. The treats may have had something to do with it, but I like to think they were happy to see me.
Well-kept Cayugas may live for longer than a decade, so the relationship you build will be one to last. As they age gracefully, your Cayugas will start to turn white with every molt, resulting in a dappled duck that looks like shadows on the water. Their feet will also start to take on an orange tinge.
Some websites say that they are quiet. I scratch my head at that and shrug because my Cayuga female was quite the talker, and a loud one at that — louder even than my Runner ducks. I loved the sound of my noisy flock, but if you’re expecting a quiet homestead, maybe you should go with some near-silent Muscovy ducks.
Resources also say that the Cayuga is too heavy-bodied to fly and will happily stay close to home. Again, I shrug because I have personally watched one of my Cayuga ducks fly off into the sunset, never to return. To be fair, it was her first day on the homestead and she had been scared as we tried to transfer her from a dog crate to the duck house.
None of the other ducks made an escape attempt, but I would still recommend clipping the flight feathers of one wing on any new, adult duck that you bring home … just to be sure they stick around during the adjustment period!
Caring for Cayuga Ducks
Keeping ducks is a relatively simple endeavor, as long as you have the space for them. Provide your Cayuga flock with a safe place to sleep at night, room to forage, and clean water, and you’ll be enjoying them for years to come. Cayuga ducks don’t necessarily need a pond to thrive, either — just be sure to provide them fresh water in a pan that is deep enough to submerge their head, and you’ll be good to go.
Related Post: What Do Ducks Eat?
As a nod to its potentially wild background, the Cayuga is quite weather-hardy and happy to forage. If you have the space to allow your ducks to free-range and forage, they will be excellent at finding the bulk of their own food. If you need to provide the majority of your flock’s food, their needs are simple.
For an in-depth answer to that question, I wrote a long article about what to feed ducks — and you can find it here! The short answer to this question is that ducks love greens, grains, and grubs. If they have access to forage and the bugs hidden alongside, they will be absolutely fine with some simple birdseed in a pan they can visit from time to time.
Just make sure you don’t give your ducklings medicated chick food because they’ll overdose on it. And don’t give your adult ducks white bread or junk food. If you already know it’s bad for you, it is guaranteed to be bad for them!
Related Post: What to Feed Ducks Instead of Bread
If you start your flock from hatchlings, your ducks’ beginning days will need a little bit of extra care. Ducklings can be raised outside in mild weather within confinement provided they have a dry, sheltered area to sleep at night and during wet weather. Some people give their ducklings outside excursions starting at 3 weeks old but in any case, without a watchful hen, you need to be the one to keep them safe.
They won’t be waterproofed and able to stay warm until they have feathered out, so as long as they are fuzzy and cute, keep them out of the rain and cold. You can allow them to swim in a kiddie pool or the bathtub every now and again after about 5 weeks, but you will have to help them. Like human kids, ducklings will swim until they’re too tired to get out on their own.
Once they have adult feathers, however, they will be good to go for the wide-open world. Some folks have ducks share the coop with their chickens, but in this homesteader’s opinion, it’s best to keep them separate, especially if you have drakes. They may try to mate the chicken hens with fatal results. Let’s just say their hardware is a lot different from a rooster.
So, if this spring has you ready to add some new ducks to your flock, why not go for the under-appreciated, yet totally valuable and beautiful Cayuga? Or, if you already get to share life with these amiable birds, share your stories below!
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Great article. Love my Cayugas too!
Awww, they’re so sweet! So glad to share some Cayuga appreciation. Just wait till those little squirts grow their adult feathers–they’ll be so beautiful! Thanks for your comment. 🙂
Look at those cuties! Thanks for sharing, John. You’ll have to update us on how living with them goes!
Leigha
thanks for sharing this article and now i want to get some Cayugas, and i hope it will be really fun.
So glad it could be helpful, Libby! Ducks really are a lot of fun and a big asset to the homestead, if you have one–I hope you learn a lot and enjoy the ride.
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Awesome article! I’ve got a Buff, a Khaki Campbell (both about 12 weeks old) and a Cayuga (about 10 weeks old), along with 8 chickens (all hens) who are all 22 weeks old. We live in the interior of Alaska and this will be our first time overwintering our flock so it will be a learning experience, 50 and 60 below 0 makes life pretty interesting 🙂 Any suggestions you may have, I am all ears! We are not going to go the route of a heat lamp in the coop because we have had friends who had their coop burn down and also had others have their flock freeze to death when the lamp suddenly stopped working in the middle of the night, so we are going to do the deep litter method. Anyway, here is a picture of my girls. From the left is Dolly, Patsy, and Reba…yes, I have the Women of Country Trifecta!
Phew, you are made of tougher stuff than me! I can handle temperatures above 100 with little fuss, but when the mercury drops below freezing, I’m a total wimp! As such, my advice is limited to my personal experience of living where winters only drop to -10 on the handful of coldest nights.
That said, I think you’re on the right track. As you already know, deep litter is crucial for ducks in the winter–they bury their feet in it and are able to build up warmth through the cold night. You’ll have to work a little to make sure there’s always some dry material for them to bed in, as they obviously have no qualms about pooping everywhere.
A second, absolutely crucial thing in the cold is to prevent the wind from sucking the warmth out of the coop. It’s a balance with also providing ventilation, but if your coop is solid against the wind, your birds have a better chance of building up heat in that space. Insulate it as well as you can and make sure there are no drafts, particularly where the birds sleep.
A third consideration is letting them acclimate naturally like the animals they are. A lot of people actually impede their birds’ abilities to adjust to the dropping temperatures by constantly offering a human-comfortable warm place as a respite. Wild animals respond to seasonal change, and domestic animals can too if they are allowed to interact with the real temperature without “recesses” in human land (this is why outdoor cats, for example, can usually manage just fine through the winter, but indoor/outdoor cats need protection). I imagine that’s partly why your one friend’s flock froze when the heat lamp went off-they were acclimated to still having that external heat. I’ve heard of off-grid ways of providing heat (such as rice bags heated in the microwave, and so on) but I would only resort to providing those on the absolute worst nights, if even necessary). Ducks in particular are pretty resilient against cold! They don’t have frostbite-prone combs like chickens, and they’re obviously covered in super-warm down!
Finally, the last bit of advice (in this overlong reply, haha) is to keep them well-fed. A well-fed animal can provide that body warmth–they use a lot of energy to keep that “internal fire” burning. I’ve heard from another homesteading friend that whole corn provides more “heat” than cracked corn.
Hope that helps! If you remember it, let us know how the winter goes!
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Hi! I am new to ducks and I have one Cayuga & one Pekin! They just hit 14 weeks yesterday and I love them so. I have raised them since they were hatched and I was hoping for girls as I also have 4 chickens and have heard all the stories of drakes. So… I know the Pekin is a girl for sure! The Cayuga, Frank-Lynne, I am not sure. She makes a noise which sounds like a quack to me and is super chatty and loving. I honestly can’t tell the difference in sound between the males and females for that breed… She has kind of a couple of feathers that curl up a bit, but nothing like the photos of drakes I see online, just ever so slightly curled. Are the drake feathers very prominent at 14 weeks? And if I do end up with a drake, should I get rid of both ducks, as they are very attached and I don’t want to separate…but I don’t want my drake to become ornery. Any advice?
They’re cute! As far as feathering goes, the best answer I can give you at the moment is “it depends.” The duck growth rates given online are generalities, and your birds are individuals! Sounds are the best earlyish clue for gender that I know.
So, as far as sounds go, the males are markedly different than the females. If your Cayuga does the typical, loud clearly-voiced “QUAAAACK quack quack,” that’s probably a tip-off for being a female. Your female pekin should give you a clue of what it sounds like. The males sound very hoarse (like this, regardless of breed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uczqOP-cYY8 ).
If you do end up with a drake, you have all the way until next spring to decide what to do with him (his sex hormones won’t turn him “ornery” until then). You can get another two females to help him spread his affections, if you decide to keep him. Or, you could also try to trade him for another female at a different homestead–even though I know you don’t want to separate them, maybe it will help to know they can make new friends and be just fine. As sweet as they are now, the truth is that if he over-breeds and hurts the Pekin if they’re left as-is, they’ll seem a lot less cute.
Thanks for your question, Alexis! Hope that helps!
Hi I have a boy I thing and a girl. same as above. Are Cayuga males really aggressive during sexual peak? Do I need to get another girl?
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I have 2 Cayuga ducks. Cheese and Quackers. I love them so much
What do you feed them when there first born ?
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Loved your article
So helpful
My wife just picked up these 3 Cayugas after we had to get rid of our Muscovy for being too boisterous.
Looking forward to having them roaming around the garden
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Great article, thank you. I fell in love with Cayuga ducks the first time I saw one and had to get some. I purchased 4 baby Cayuga’s in May (2 weeks old) and eventually joined them with my 2 Peking ducks and 10 hens. They are now 6 months old (3 female, 1 drake) and have begun laying eggs. To my surprise though, the eggs are white, not black or grey. Is it because it’s Fall time? Will they eventually turn black or grey in the Spring? Also, even though I have raised these feathery friends since they were very young, they are still not interested in me touching them or picking them up and my Peking ducks don’t like them at all. This saddens me because I would have liked them to have been friendlier. (After all, they lived with me for a month when I first got them!). They are chatty though – I agree with you on that one. They welcome me every time with lots of quacking!!