Will my Silkie Rooster mate with my duck?

Hey guys! Hope i'm posting this in the right place. I recently found out that you can cross a silkie with a duck, my question is how?! I have a female Rouen and a Silkie rooster, both about a year old... the duck has been laying eggs for about a month now, but not trying to sit on them that I've noticed... she's a bit skittish, so maybe she just hops off her nest when I come in the coop... will they be able to hatch a batch together, or do you need a female silkie and male duck to do that? Thanks so much for your help!

To my knowledge, it is quite impossible to cross-breed a duck and a chicken as they are completely different species of fowl. There is a duck with "Silkie" feathers, but it is not related to the Silkie chicken.

LOL I feel so silly... after i posted this, i did some more looking on google.... and you're so right... the silky duck has no relation to a duck and silkie being crossed lmao... i got SO excited!!

Whoa there! If you ever get a male duck who mates with hens, stop him immediately, as ducks have penises and roosters do not, and he could do internal damage that may be fatal! A rooster who jumps ducks would also probably distress the living daylights out of her, as well as possibly damage her accidentally with claws/spurs/trying to hold on.

As far as I know, very, very rarely do some hybrids occur between different species of fowl, for instance chickens, turkeys, peafowl and other randoms like guinea fowl and pheasants. It's not a good, healthy nor fertile hybrid that results and while you can cross some ducks and geese I don't know about land fowl and water fowl.

One thing scientists use to fuse alien types of dna together is microwave radiation, as it breaks down the barriers between cells, and the world's basking in that in this modern day, so I'm expecting that in future we will see many hybrids that should never have occurred as different sperm and eggs fuse that never should have. But in general, if not even as a rule, they will be weakly, faulty, sterile animals.

I had a silky rooster who thought my white turkey tom was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen; whenever the male displayed to the female, out of nowhere a fluffy bullet would smack into his butt while his tail was spread. Terrified the poor tom, he kept his tail down, and the rooster took a while to realize the tom was a male. Never tried to mate with the turkey hens though they've all been amorously inviting to the roosters over the years. I'd hoped to see a hybrid too, even though it's be no actual use, and most likely very poorly. I've seen a few turkey chicken hybrids before, they look like an eagle's head's been pasted on a tiny vulture's body.

My African Dewlap gander tried to mate my poor Splash Copper Marans hen yesterday, but as he walked by, she squatted, I was shocked to see that. It was a horrible ordeal! I stopped him immediately and so far he has left her alone. He is massive in size compared to her and I was very worried that he was going to hurt her. He is being a goober since his mate is sitting on a nest of eggs and he seems to be bullying the chickens more at this time. Any other time he leaves the chickens completely alone, unless they get to close to his babies that he is raising, then he just lowers his neck and squeals at them until they leave.

I don't think I will ever get over seeing him do that yesterday. Sure hope he doesn't try it again, I would hate to see her get hurt.



Animal behaviors are certainly wierd from time to time.

lol definitely wierd... i haven't seen any odd activity like you guys have... i just got excited at the prospect of a furry duck! Sadly, this apparently is a pipe dream... ducks are too messy anyways (sigh)..

also, thanks for explaining the general anatomy of roosters/drakes, chooks4life.... i really had no idea!.... i love them, feed them, get the eggs and that's pretty much it... but i love learning more and more about my pets! so... when roosters breed hens....there's NO penetration?and the eggs are fertile? how does that work?!

It's called a 'cloacal kiss'. Kinda like a french kiss, lol. No penetration. There's none needed. Penises aren't actually the norm for most birds, as well as other animals. They're more relevant to waterbirds who have the issue of water to deal with, than land birds. Some ducks have corkscrew penises that drop off after each breeding season, lol. Which is good because those ones are rapists. But the females have it handled, they've got umpteen 'dead ends' and it takes a lot of careful co-operative maneuvering to make it work with their life mate. The opportunists don't get offspring.
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He most likely will. 'Once' is more often a warning sign than an aberration. If he views her as a potential mate it won't be a flash in the pan thought unless she transforms her image in his eyes into an angry male. I've had a few males and females keen on cross-species affairs. One turkey tom kept trying to mate with banties, no good, lol. Had to cull him to save the tiny hens. Generally hens will crouch in the mating position because they have gotten confused about what's approaching them: so it must be a rooster! I think it's due to the high incidence of artificial insemination in some production breeds, and I also blame that for a lot of rooster's aggressive or amorous attitudes towards humans. After all, if the only mating behaviour they've experienced for the last however many generations has involved a human hand, what other instincts could they possibly have about it?

sarahc8 said:

also, thanks for explaining the general anatomy of roosters/drakes, chooks4life.... i really had no idea!.... i love them, feed them, get the eggs and that's pretty much it... but i love learning more and more about my pets! so... when roosters breed hens....there's NO penetration?and the eggs are fertile? how does that work?!

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Ever lifted the tail to look at a hens vent? It moves like contractions....the sperm is basically deposited on to the outside of the vent and then sucked in for lack of a better explanation.

chooks4life said:

It's called a 'cloacal kiss'. Kinda like a french kiss, lol. No penetration. There's none needed. Penises aren't actually the norm for most birds, as well as other animals. They're more relevant to waterbirds who have the issue of water to deal with, than land birds. Some ducks have corkscrew penises that drop off after each breeding season, lol. Which is good because those ones are rapists. But the females have it handled, they've got umpteen 'dead ends' and it takes a lot of careful co-operative maneuvering to make it work with their life mate. The opportunists don't get offspring.

He most likely will. 'Once' is more often a warning sign than an aberration. If he views her as a potential mate it won't be a flash in the pan thought unless she transforms her image in his eyes into an angry male. I've had a few males and females keen on cross-species affairs. One turkey tom kept trying to mate with banties, no good, lol. Had to cull him to save the tiny hens. Generally hens will crouch in the mating position because they have gotten confused about what's approaching them: so it must be a rooster! I think it's due to the high incidence of artificial insemination in some production breeds, and I also blame that for a lot of rooster's aggressive or amorous attitudes towards humans. After all, if the only mating behaviour they've experienced for the last however many generations has involved a human hand, what other instincts could they possibly have about it?

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What a lot of interesting "facts" & theories. I'd lie to learn more about the shedding penis'. Any links to a scientific website that discusses this? The AI theory is also interesting. Any data to support it?