Muscovy Ducks are possibly not the most beautiful of all creatures, with the red rubber like skin on their faces and around their bills, and they don't make the most melodic sound, actually they sound more like someone with a terrible head cold with their hissing. That being said though, I highly recommend having a few muscovies on your land if you have the room. They come in a variety of colors, usually black, white, chocolate and blue or a combination of the colors, and can be found in pied variety, solid or even barred. They are highly entertaining to watch wattle around the yard with their large tails swaying from side to side, and bobbing their heads back and forth. They eat slugs that may bother your garden and they are fairly self sufficient in the spring and summer months. Muscovies are also one of the few breeds of domestic ducks that can fly for a greater distance than a few feet, actually they are very good flyers with a massive wing span. Some people prefer to raise them as pets to wonder the yard with their chickens, but Muscovies are actually bred to be meat ducks, and they are good ones as the males can grow up to 10-15 pounds!! Hopefully you will fall in love with the breed and will want more, because chances are if you start with a pair (a male and a female) you will have more before to long. The Muscovy ducks are great mothers! They can cover a lot of eggs and have a lot of dedication and usually have a really high hatch rate. Let's face it there really isn't much cuter than a bunch of ducklings following their mother around the yard. 
In my experience even the father gets in on parenting with muscovies, which is strange for most ducks and chickens, usually the father fertilizes the egg, but doesn't really keep tabs on the ducklings growing up. My males follow the females around with the ducklings and frequently can be seen walking the ducklings around themselves. I don't know if this is standard practice for most males or if my males are just great father material, but it is funny to see them wondering with the "kids" following them while mom goes off to swim alone.
This summer I was surprised with three mothers that sat one eggs, one presented me with 17 ducklings, one with 13 ducklings and the final one descended from her nest with 8 ducklings. Sadly, but not unexpectedly we did loose 5 total from the three batches, but the rest grew and are still growing. Many are black and white, some solid white, and some gray(blue) and white. Some have found new homes, because I am pretty sure I would go broke trying to feed all of them this winter, but I did keep some. They are full size now and some have broken off from their mother and go about their day hanging out with other young ducks, but there are still four that like to stay near their mothers, all of them are females and I am sure come spring they will venture away from their mother and sit on eggs of their own and emerge with 15 darling ducklings of their own!
