Duck Breed Focus - Australian Spotted Duck

[Amiga]

 

[Duck Drover]

This is a silverhead drake. I sent my daughter out to take pictures so this was taken just now.

 

[Duck Drover]

My daughter took this picture of a greenhead drake just now but his green is not showing up as well so he almost looks bluehead. Greenheads have the mallard colored heads and blueheads have black heads so it is easier to tell them apart in sunlight.

 

[Duck Drover]

This is a picture of a greenhead drake and greenhead hens I took last year for size comparison. The chicken hen is a blue Orpington. The drakes are more spotted with their second molt before going into eclipse.

 

[Duck Drover]

This is a bluehead duckling feathering out from its down color.

 

[Harborotter]

I should post a pic of my favorite silver head hen. She is so tiny. She came from Holderreads show stock. I just love her.

 

[Duck Drover]

I should post a pic of my favorite silver head hen.  She is so tiny.  She came from Holderreads show stock.  I just love her.

Many of our first ducks were second hand from Holderreads but we did drive down for a silverhead drake and bluehead female. We also got show quality and they seem to have a little more Call characteristics so it made me wonder if they were bred back to Calls to get the dilute colors. They seem to have slightly shorter bills than our greenheads that are also from Holderreads. We started hatching silverheads that feathered in with white background colors and I was initially worried about the color but when I asked Dave about it he said they had harlequin genetics which throw the best colors.

We keep our smallest ducks for breeding since they do vary a little in size. Some of our first greenheads may have been overfed as ducklings but we generally keep our feeders full day and night as long as the chickens don't throw the feed on the ground. The ducks get a refill after the chickens go to bed because they like to snack at night and they will make a fuss when my husband gets up at 2:30am if their feeder is empty and then he has to feed them before he goes to work.

 

[Duck Drover]

Here are some of our secondhand ducks we drove to Oregon for since the family who ordered the ten duckling minimum from Holderreads only wanted to keep a pair. The baby pictures were taken before we got them so we were lucky to get pictures of our ducks as ducklings.

 

[cscarney]

Many of our first ducks were second hand from Holderreads but we did drive down for a silverhead drake and bluehead female. We also got show quality and they seem to have a little more Call characteristics so it made me wonder if they were bred back to Calls to get the dilute colors. They seem to have slightly shorter bills than our greenheads that are also from Holderreads. We started hatching silverheads that feathered in with white background colors and I was initially worried about the color but when I asked Dave about it he said they had harlequin genetics which throw the best colors.

We keep our smallest ducks for breeding since they do vary a little in size. Some of our first greenheads may have been overfed as ducklings but we generally keep our feeders full day and night as long as the chickens don't throw the feed on the ground. The ducks get a refill after the chickens go to bed because they like to snack at night and they will make a fuss when my husband gets up at 2:30am if their feeder is empty and then he has to feed them before he goes to work.

In my experience with the silverheads the ducks have always had the white background color with faint light markings on the feathers. If you look at a duck from each color (greenhead, bluehead, silverhead) side by side, you can see the dilution gene at work--greenheads definitely have the most intense colors, blueheads are softer colored, and silverheads have even less pigment showing up in the feathers. Not as obvious with the drakes, but you can still see it.

Interesting on the Call characteristics showing up....I don't think I've had that happen with mine. Also, anyone know if there's a formal standard, and, if so, where I can get my hands on a copy?? It would be nice to get a concerted effort going to breed these ducks and get them accepted by the APA or ABA, but I know that's likely to be a lot of work.

 

[Duck Drover]

This is our first Spot with the white background feathers. She also had a dark bill, which concerned me. Her spots were actually darker than our silverhead spots too. Usually the silverheads end up looking beige with light colored spots that blend in with their background color. She had such unusual color that I had to ask Dave what happened to her color. We sold her (she was so striking that many people wanted her) but we kept some of her daughters with lighter bills in order to keep her genetics. Some of our silverhead ducklings feather out with a beige background and some feather out with a white background but they all hatch out with yellow down.

The third picture at the top of this thread is one of our first greenheads (split to blue) that had white background feathers but they were just above her tail with the rest of her background feathers being brown. I had asked Dave about her color and he said more contrast is a good thing so we kept her for breeding. I think the white was actually out of the bluehead hen, also pictured in the opening post for this thread (second picture of bluehead hen next to a silverhead hen), since she had the same linear spots on a bluehead fawn colored background. This hen came directly from Holderreads but she was a secondhand duck for me so I can only assume she was purebred. I sold her too so I no longer have her but I have kept pictures of her and the white hen seems to resemble her due to their spots being thinner and more linear. I also have a picture of a white greenhead drake that is related to my hens with the white hind ends so I can post a picture of him for comparison.