Advice please - should I rehome new ducks

[Jen1979]

Ok, so we had one surviving duckling from a hatch 7 weeks ago - I am almost 100% sure he is male. We now have 3 females, 2 males. At the moment the new male youngster is still with his mum separated from our other adult male and 2 girls.

We know this won't be a great ratio going forward, so we decided to get 2 more females. Here lies the problem. We picked up 2 gorgeous runner ducks 2 days ago (they are separated from the rest at the moment). When we picked them up we were quite sure they were girls, but when we got home...I'm not sure about one of them. This one has female mallard colouring, but doesn't have a loud quack like the other...it literally sounds like a seal and I think I'm hearing a rasp. They're both about 10 weeks old.

If one is a male, we will definitely rehome this pair. However, the other problem is - our existing ducks are runners x pekins. Now that I have these pure-bred runners here I see that our ducks are HUGE compared to them! Our 7 week old duckling is bigger than them.. I'm not sure if they will grow much bigger or not..

I am worried that they will be in trouble when they come up against our adult male... Is this a legitimate concern?

Should I
a) wait and see if they are both girls and keep them if they are
b) rehome them now and try and get 2 Pekin females instead
c) (and I really don't want to do this) rehome both new ducks and the make duckling. I don't want to rehome him because I don't want him to go to a new home all on his own without any of his flock members...but I won't rehome his mum or any of my other girls

 

[Amiga]

I would be concerned about the size difference. I would not want my Runner females with a Pekin male.

 

[Jen1979]

Thanks Amiga. I'll try and get some pics of them today too

 

[Jen1979]

So these are the 2 ducks

This is a picture of the colouring on the 'mallard' coloured one. It has a bright green feather on both sides too but of course I just couldn't get a photo of it! It's very pretty.

So the question is, boy or girl?? The white one is clearly a girl (by quack) but the other one sounds very different. It sounds hoarse but loudly hoarse. I've tried to get a video but I don't think it is very easy to hear. It sounds like a seal in real life! It doesn't sound like our adult male, but doesn't sound like the girl either.

 

[needlessjunk]

Here is a link of what a males sounds like
http://www.majesticwaterfowl.org/artquacks.htm
In your video I didn't hear any male noises but I also couldn't tell you what duck I was hearing.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Beautiful ducks Jen could be the age to as far as the sounds your hearing. Look at those sunflowers aren't they gorgeous. makes me long for spring and summer.

 

[Jen1979]

Thanks @needlessjunk and @Miss Lydia

I guess this ones going to keep me in suspense for a few more weeks!

The sunflowers have come up lovely haven't they? That's because they're the ONLY thing ducks have decided they don't want to eat. Ha! W're starting to plan our garden around the ducks - we've got a plan that includes some things they like to eat and some things they don't so it doesn't just look bare all the time! We're kind of longing for winter here now though - we've had several days of 45 degrees Celsius during this summer - a bit too hot for my liking!

 

[Miss Lydia]

Thanks @needlessjunk and @Miss Lydia

I guess this ones going to keep me in suspense for a few more weeks!

The sunflowers have come up lovely haven't they? That's because they're the ONLY thing ducks have decided they don't want to eat. Ha! W're starting to plan our garden around the ducks - we've got a plan that includes some things they like to eat and some things they don't so it doesn't just look bare all the time! We're kind of longing for winter here now though - we've had several days of 45 degrees Celsius during this summer - a bit too hot for my liking!

Is it a dry or humid hot? Growing up in Florida I remember when we'd have 113 with heat index [humidity] Very hot.

 

[Jen1979]

Ours is mostly a dry hot and a ridiculous amount of bush fires this year has made it just seem hot, dry and smokey for months. Ugh. I know what you mean about the humidity, sometimes it seems like it's about to get better because it's going to rain...then you realise it's still going to be the same temperature - so horrible.

I just took another little video of the new ducks and managed to mostly get the darker one making it's noises without all the ducks trying to have some sort of sing a long! Ha! (I know I agreed I would just have to wait and see if it was a male or female. I know I said that...but you know I'm going to obsess over trying to figure it out until that day comes haha)

The white duck makes the short loud "dut dut" noises at the beginning and end, but the rest of the noises through the middle of the video (kind of "ack ack" ) are coming from the brown duck. I'm just so confused because they don't quite sound like male noises but it still sounds hoarse to me! (My husband is laughing at me because I laugh at him when he goes over and over mechanical problems with the car and can't let it go....he said I'm the same with duck sexing! Lol)

 

[Kaessa]

Hard to tell. Just sounds like happy duck noises.