sexing juvenile Muscovies ***PICS ADDED***

[harleyjo]

Mine are past that stage. Mine are all feathered. I know what you are talking about because some of them do feather faster. Does the body size mean anything? I have someone coming now in the morning to buy 6 of them and I really want to keep a couple of the females. I have some that are noticably smaller in stature and size. I stood out there and looked at their wings for a long time. They all have feathers now. Some of them are not filled in as much towards the bottom of the wings but for the most part they are all feathered and past that stub stage.

 

[iajewel]

The hens should have thinner legs, but that isn't always true, and its not always true that drakes are larger. I have seen some clutches where some hens are huge and some drakes tiny. I hold the tiny ones back and breeding them together as I like working on a call duck type Muscovy.. however and the point Im trying to make is.. that doesn't always work. I suggest learning to sex them by vent, or start banding them when they feather out.

 

[Kenneth Flippen]

Added pics

 

[Wulfandwyn]

The boys hiss and the girls make a trilling noise. I read on line how to vent sex and tried it when they were younger but it didn't seem to work. Metzer farms has a video on sexing baby ducklings http://www.metzerfarms.com/SexingVideo.cfm?CustID=505344 but I haven't found one on sexing older ducks (although there probably is one on you tube). Found this for you though hope it helps. https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=330793

 

[Kenneth Flippen]

Quote:
Thanks any ideas on what the color names are?

 

[Wulfandwyn]

The first are black and then I think chocolate and the last in the back looked like a black barred(don't remember for sure on the barring I get that mixed up with another type). There is a muscovy web site that has a lot of the colors in photos and I think Iajewel is working on one too. I am new to this so I am still learning.

 

[Kenneth Flippen]

Thanks so the colors description is pretty simple I guess unlike chickens I'll be trying to sex them this weekend


Kenneth

 

[ian4379]

at the age that your ducks are at size does matter, the black one in the second pic on the left is a boy, i'm pretty sure he's the same bird in the first pic on the right. the rest are ducks. you have both blacks and chocolates.

there is no one rule for sexing muscovy, as already stated wing feathering is good but not always definative, same as leg size. from practice you can sometimes tell from the shape of the head but again this isnt definative, also a drake had a longer neck which will show with more curve when they sit, but again its not definitive. by 9 or 10 weeks it should be pretty obvious on size alone which ones are male and which ones are female. run a search in this forum on sexing muscovy and half a dozen thread should show up. you cannot tell muscovy sex by the tails or by the noises they make as ducklings

 

[Kenneth Flippen]

Quote:
Thanks what age would you guess them to be? They look like they're starting to get their caruncling