We bought our first ducks around two years ago. They were anonymous white ducklings from the Agri Shop, presumably 'designed' to be meat ducks. They grew fast, but we were never quite sure which were male and which were female. No eggs were ever laid. No mating ever seemed to take place. So we waited. We asked a friend about them she said that she thought they 'did something' to them, and said that she'd heard that someone had once cut one open and it 'wasn't right inside'. I had no idea how much faith to place in that statement, but I took note that all may not be well.
I talked about it at some length with my other half, and we wondered if maybe they'd been given some sort of hormone treatment to make them grow faster or something, and if so maybe a side effect was that they didn't mature sexually, or were a bit transgender or something.
We decided to give up on these ducks as a a lost cause, and this morning I killed one of them for the table. Then I plucked it, and gutted it.
For those of you with strong stomachs, this is what I found - PLEASE DON'T CLICK IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH!!
http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/309879_273273266018657_100000079578758_1203649_4994644_n.jpg The intestines are at the front of the photo, slightly smaller than I would have expected, and the gizzard is slightly further back, in the centre,encased in white tissue. But what the hell is the rest of it? There seem to be two kidneys embedded somewhere in that horrific mass, and there was a bit of liver somewhere underneath out of sight. I'm not sure if I even saw a heart. The whole cavity was packed tight with this lot - it's a wonder the poor thing could waddle around...

ops:
This was the first time I'd gutted a duck - but I'm pretty certain that this is far from normal! Could the ducklings have been treated with hormones before we bought them? Is this some kind of cancer induced by a hormone treatment? Or is it just bad luck? I have a couple more ducks to cull for the table. But at this rate I'm not sure how many of them are going to get that far...
Any comments, suggestions, anything?