How to sex Muscovy ducklings

I will not get into vent sexing as you can hurt the duckling. If you have a good eye you can sex looking at the legs of the ducklings. The males will look like over grown monsters with tree trucks for clumsy legs. The females will be well suited to the size of their legs. Females will grow their wing feathers first. So much so that the males will still have featherless stubs while the females are well on their way to having wings.

I hope this helps you all sex your ducklings this fall.

I will never learn how to do this!
I have raised up some this year and know my own boys from girls. The boys have grown into big monsters, they did feather out later but I could tell from their legs as they were maturing that they were boys.

However, I have one chocolate pied that was given to me that I thought was a girl but the oldest master male of the group still seems to be chasing this one off from them. I swear, it looks like a girl to me.
When one of my girls tried to go broody a few weeks ago this odd one out stayed in the coup with her. Huggs is a sweet girl and never gets after other animals so I am not sure if it was only because this poor thing was/is lonely that it stayed in with her. She dejectedly follows the group around when out and about on the farm and when time to lock up for the night Herman stills tried to keep her from coming into the coop.
This one has a lot more caruncles on the face than my other girls of the same age.

Is it a personality conflict or do I have a thin legged, small male?

And again.......

If its thin legged, its a girl
yes hens do have conflicts. and they hate others around their nests

Thank you for posting! I'm adding this to my favorites! my friend just hatched a bunch of ducklings. well, she didn't, her muscovy hen did. Will this work if they are muscovies crossed with ???

If your friend is breeding mules then I think it would still work? I dont' know I keep mine straight.

Okay. Thank you. If I have time I will go over to my friends house and take a peek at her ducklings' legs, then let yall know after they grow up if it still works with mules.

They really need to be partially feathered for this to work. Its about the age they start getting tail feathers you began to notice the legs, and about that time the girls start to get wing feathers too, the boys don't. They are slow on that.

Oh, Okay. Well they just hatched last week i think, so I guesse I don't have to rush right over then

Quote:
Thanks for the advice. I had never heard that before. Mine are 3 months old now. 2 of the 6 are a lot bigger. Can I assume those 2 are males? I'll check the wing/leg thing tomorrow after day light.

Okay! I know this post is ancient, lol, but I wanted to add my 2 cents because I think people didn't only care about sexing baby Muscovies in 2011... I have a batch of babies right now. They are about 4 weeks old...super cute! But I have another tip for deciding "boy?" or "girl?" Notice their ears!! Besides having a noticeably larger frame (larger head, legs, body, etc.,) they have a more prominent feather covering their ears. At least mine do, lol. Anybody else notice this?