Welsh Harlequin

[JessiLynn]

Thanks!! Your babies are/were beautiful!!

Hmmm now you are making me nervous that what I thought were all boys may have in fact just been silver!! Mine did look like yours and half had the dark body coloration but those all had darker bills so I thought they were boys

The other 6 were light with a faint gold. So much for marking the boys upon delivery...OOPS?!

Oh no! Well, I hope that isn't the case! Did they arrive with colored leg bands? Metzer marked the hens and drake with different colored tape. I'm not sure it would help you at all, but here is what my silver phase drake looks like at 4 week old:

He is the duckling furthest to the left with the greener lighter bill. All the females (except for the Gold phase hen's) bills are pretty dark now. In the picture below she is on the far left. Even her bill is darkening just a little now, but not as dark as the other ladies'.

 

[TattooedMama]

I am not sure anymore!! I think I am just doubting myself now. UGH

I went back and looked at the photos I took when they came in. Some of them are blurry but literally every chick with the darker head, what I now believe to be silver phase, has a dark bill. All the gold phase ducklings, yellow with light gold shading, had pink bills. There is only maybe 1 of the Silver phase that had a more pink bill and I remember that because initially i counted them by bill color and said I had 7 duckd Later when I realized color correlation I thought I must be wrong and associated down color with sex.

It would be very interesting to see if Holderread sent all Silver males and all Gold females. I guess it is wait and see at this point. Good thing I learned I may be wrong before I sold any extras as sexed!!

 

[suzy4027]

I've come to see that this is the eternal question! Drake or hen? Drake or hen.....?! Lol. I wonder if no early indicators makes it easier to wait for curly feathers or harder? I think I'd be sitting there with my phone's voice recorder going so I could obsess over their quacks! Lol I really want 2 girls, but I think I'm just kidding myself. Darn.

Good thing the drake has a great personality.....

 

[Peekkiinn]

This is Dora and Explora sisters Xo

 

[suzy4027]

That's hysterical! But you know... Now you've set yourself up. Dora has no inside voice what so ever! They're gonna be SO LOUD! Do they quack at you and then just stare, waiting for you to answer? Lol. Awk.ward! Now you just need Backpack and Map. Preferably a hen with a yellow beak for Backpack since everybody was sure SHE was a boy!! Lol

 

[suzy4027]

Forgot to say your ducks are beautiful! Pretty cool that you have a silver and gold. Did you order them? We got ours from a feed store (Orschlens) who uses Estes Hatchery. The female is sure I have her in the menu! I've had to do vitamins and 3 diff splints on the boy's legs, so she is sure I'm out to get her too, but he hasn't held it against me. They're names are Tater (drake) and Tot. They're my 4th grader's and she had names picked out well in advance. Lol. I'm pretty sure she's a silver but I think he's gold. I plan to seperate them during mating season but if it's too rough, I'll probably order some more. Prob fom Metzer since I would just want 2 more. At this point I'm happily deluding myself that Tater could be a yellow beaked hen. I change my mind about every 2-3 days. Lol.

 

[Kaessa]

That's hysterical! But you know... Now you've set yourself up. Dora has no inside voice what so ever! They're gonna be SO LOUD! Do they quack at you and then just stare, waiting for you to answer? Lol. Awk.ward! Now you just need Backpack and Map. Preferably a hen with a yellow beak for Backpack since everybody was sure SHE was a boy!! Lol

 

[Peekkiinn]

That's hysterical! But you know... Now you've set yourself up. Dora has no inside voice what so ever! They're gonna be SO LOUD! Do they quack at you and then just stare, waiting for you to answer? Lol. Awk.ward! Now you just need Backpack and Map. Preferably a hen with a yellow beak for Backpack since everybody was sure SHE was a boy!! Lol

Hahaha that's funny because they do, do this!! I got them from a friend who could no longer have them they are a mix breed and also miniature so are even more adorable

 

[TattooedMama]

Oh no! Well, I hope that isn't the case! Did they arrive with colored leg bands? Metzer marked the hens and drake with different colored tape. I'm not sure it would help you at all, but here is what my silver phase drake looks like at 4 week old:

He is the duckling furthest to the left with the greener lighter bill. All the females (except for the Gold phase hen's) bills are pretty dark now. In the picture below she is on the far left. Even her bill is darkening just a little now, but not as dark as the other ladies'.

Take a look at these from the first day I got them, 1-2days after hatch, on the way home from the post office. There is one with a dark hard that looks like a girl but other than that, all mostly yellow ducklings (gold phase?) have pink toned bills and all dark headed ducklings (silver?) have black bills. ODD!!!

 

[tdd2]

Well, we've had some issues lately with our Pekin drake, 'Squirt' over powering our smallest Welshie 'Sweet Pea' now that it's mating season and nature has taken over his drive - he's just much bigger than she is

He's gotten into the habit of grabbing her head (as apposed to the back of her neck) in his much bigger bill, and this has caused an injury to Sweet Peas' left eye. It's healing up well now, and she has full use of it - I just don't want it to happen again.

Squirt doesn't mess with our other two female Welshies much, and our Khaki female doesn't take any crap from him (she's in charge here)

We've tried separating them for the past week - keeping Sweet Pea in the house in a soft pen at night, and only letting her out with the others while supervised.

However, Squirt still chases after her when we take them out for supervised yard time, it isn't convenient for us to keep separating them, and Sweet Pea doesn't like being separated - even with a pen mate at night.

Rather than re-home Squirt (drakes are nearly impossible to re-home), or send Squirt to freezer camp (our ducks are pets - he was our first duck, and has a great, outgoing personality), we think it might be better to find a loving, 'freezer camp free' home with an established flock for Sweet Pea.

So, we are looking to re-home Sweet Pea.

She is a 7 month old (hatched September 8th, 2014) Silver Phase female from Metzer farms, with absolutely beautiful coloring . . .

That's her on the left, photo taken today (you can see the area around her eye is still healing):





Looking at me wondering if I've come to take her inside again . . .





In her indoor soft pen today . . .




A video clip of her in the bath a couple nights ago - love her coloring! (the small bump under her chin was a pea that got stuck under her tongue - gone now)

And that's her on the right, with Squirt in the background. (this photo taken a while ago)




She is in excellent health (aside form the noted eye injury), and has been raised in the best of conditions. Like most Welshies, she is very relaxed and laid back.

She lays consistently every day - small'ish eggs so far, and is quiet. She loves to range around the yard looking for bugs and weeds, and her favorite treat - by far - is peas (hence - Sweet Pea). If you put some peas in a small tupperware container and give it a shake, she'll come running!! (that's how we get them all to go into their pen when supervised yard time is over)

Anyway, if you are interested in a beautiful Silver Phase hen, have an established flock she can become part of, and a freezer camp free home - let me know.

We are in the Pottstown/Valley Forge area of South Eastern PA.

I will NOT ship her, though I would happily drive a bit to deliver or meet up with a loving family. I'll also have this posted in the re-homing thread - but thought this was a better place to post a Welshie available for adoption.

Thanks!!

Dan