Saxony Help with Sexing.

[QuackerJackFarms]

Anybody have this breed that can help me out? I have 7 that I hatched and I've read that the eye stripe is the give away.. but mine all have an eye stripe and surely I didn't hatch out 7 females! That's not usually how it goes for me.

Here are some pics.. I know some of them are a little harder to see. Also they are a little over 4 weeks old. (I'm not putting up pics of all 7.)


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[QuackerJackFarms]

Forgot to add- is there anything with the bill color that could help me sex them?

 

[Iain Utah]

Oh my gosh, your saxonies look like that? Now I'm super excited that my new saxony eggs are developing!!

 

[QuackerJackFarms]

I can't wait til the feather a bit more so I can see what they'll look like in person! These are just hard to sex for me cuz I've never had them. I also got one that is pure white, which I read is a gene mutation? Can't wait to see what she looks like!

 

[QuackerJackFarms]

I'm guessing no one has Saxonys? LOL. I've resorted to picking them up and listening for a mini-quack.

 

[mandelyn]

Yeah the white one is a fluke that can happen sometimes. I haven't seen it yet.

Sexing... I use the "Squeeze the quack out" method. LOL... when their voices start changing, I grab one up and start walking away with it. A girl will "Quack!" in protest if she's old enough.

I didn't notice any correlations between gender as they were growing, and trust me, I was watching!

The boys will start getting gray on the head when feathers are coming in, but by then, girls are talking anyways. Yours are in that awkward stage, they'll be gorgeous in a couple of weeks!

The eye stripe only works when they're made of real feathers, all the babies have eye stripes in fluff. You want to see it made of white feathers. Which happens later, after the voices start changing.

Boys will make a "whoooop" whistle type noise, but it's real hard to catch the one doing it. Mine do it when they hear me, before I see them. And only once!

Makes you want to learn to vent sex doesn't it. I'm too scared to try! I don't want to hurt them.

When I had 10 wonky looking babies, I sat for hours looking at size, leg thickness, coloring variations, you name it. I was puzzled till they started quacking. Ended up with 50/50 gender ratio.

Once all the voices changed, I banded the legs on the boys with blue zip ties, until I could see the difference. Then banded the ones I was going to keep as they started showing differences that affect quality. Really handy to have them marked, so you can evaluate the group as a whole when they're standing together.

 

[QuackerJackFarms]

Yeah the white one is a fluke that can happen sometimes. I haven't seen it yet.

Sexing... I use the "Squeeze the quack out" method. LOL... when their voices start changing, I grab one up and start walking away with it. A girl will "Quack!" in protest if she's old enough.

I didn't notice any correlations between gender as they were growing, and trust me, I was watching!

The boys will start getting gray on the head when feathers are coming in, but by then, girls are talking anyways. Yours are in that awkward stage, they'll be gorgeous in a couple of weeks!

The eye stripe only works when they're made of real feathers, all the babies have eye stripes in fluff. You want to see it made of white feathers. Which happens later, after the voices start changing.

Boys will make a "whoooop" whistle type noise, but it's real hard to catch the one doing it. Mine do it when they hear me, before I see them. And only once!

Makes you want to learn to vent sex doesn't it. I'm too scared to try! I don't want to hurt them.

When I had 10 wonky looking babies, I sat for hours looking at size, leg thickness, coloring variations, you name it. I was puzzled till they started quacking. Ended up with 50/50 gender ratio.

Once all the voices changed, I banded the legs on the boys with blue zip ties, until I could see the difference. Then banded the ones I was going to keep as they started showing differences that affect quality. Really handy to have them marked, so you can evaluate the group as a whole when they're standing together.

Mandelyn- Thank you so much! Great to know about the eye stripe thing! And I've been doing the same, looking at body, beak color.. trying to figure out who's head is darker... I give up! Last night a couple fell into the window well (not the smartest ducks here...) so I bent down to pick them up outta there and noticed their voices sounded different. I WISH I'd had something to mark them with! The one I picked up was definitely a boy. So I guess I'll be catching them tonight and making them upset. Hopefully get a little idea.

I need to learn how to vent sex!