advice on clipping mallard wings

[kylee2katie]

We have two 8 1/2 week old mallard hens - who decided this morning to greet me with a new found trick - they can fly!! Not good as I am in Stuttgart, Arkansas, the rice and duck capital of the world....I called our two local vets - they have never clipped wings before, so, I am not going to them....is clipping their wings something that my husband and I can do? any advice would be most helpful and greatly appreciated!! Here are my girls:

 

[kswaterfowl]

http://www.cornerstonefarm.net/wingdemo.html

PS: I think you have a pair, the one in the back of the pics appears to be a drake that is just starting to come into breeding plummage

K&S

 

[kswaterfowl]

duplicate

 

[chickenlittle32]

They all look like that at that age....at 8 1/2 weeks there would not have been any breeding plumage to moult.

 

[kswaterfowl]

Quote:
Hence I said, "coming into his breeding plumage." By eight and a half weeks most drakes are just starting to get their green heads coming in underneath the chin. Granted, it could be a hen, I can't really see it very well, but it looks like a drake from the juvenile feathers. All mallards look like hens when they first feather in, grey and snowy, but as they get older you can start to see differences. We can normally sex all of our ducklings by about a month old by bill color. If we are keeping drakes for breeding, we normally wait until they molt their juvenile plumage into nuptial the first season and then cull them when they molt out of their breeding plumage back into their first round of adult eclipse. That's when we decide if they measure up. (Unless we have an overly large number of males, and then we cull in the nuptial plumage for "chain-mail" on the claret, amount/size of neck ring.

 

[happyhens44]

Idk, too me I know the one on top looks like a drake.

 

[ottodog]

K rookie question here, if you don't clip their wings will they fly off and not come back? I had 7 hatch Saturday and was curious about this.

 

[happyhens44]

well mine fly.... and I have a open top pen and they havent left yet, if mine wanted to fly away they would have left along time ago.

 

[ksj0225]

BUMPING UP TO THE TOP

My husband and I will need to do this today or tomorrow, our birds are a little older. Any suggestions, tips, hints, more links?

Thanks
Kim

 

[kylee2katie]

Quote:
I found out last night that you are right. I do have a pair!!

The darker one in the back (Alex) when I was giving them treats last night, I noticed that he is getting green feathers all over his head and face!!