Am I in trouble?

[smithfam0908]

my daughter has two pekin ducks... and she is determined that she has a girl and boy... and she has a girl ( or thinks) that is quacking, and one that isn't yet.... So maybe she is right.....

 

[GoingQuackers]

If they are relatively quiet at 2 months old, you have males. Some of my mallard females are quiet compared to the other females, but they are noisy when they are rooting around on the ground foraging for bugs & stuff. They make honking sounds more than a full-blown quack. But my boys are just coming into their raspy little whisper-quack. Mine are 2 months old--hatched on March 14th.

 

[nachoqtpie]

That means we will have to rehome 2 of our ducks

I know we will keep the female... but.. how in the world do you choose which boy you are going to keep?

Should I keep the other Pekin so I only have Pekin ducks, or do I keep the mallard because he's so pretty when he's in feather?

The mallards aren't quite 2 months yet... we got them from TSC on 31March and they said they got their new stock every Monday.. so that would make them less than a week old. So... do you think I *might* still have a chance to have a female mallard or should I just give up the ghost now?

 

[justduckiehere]

we have four pekin's that we got about the week after Easter. One is peeping and it's bill is almost a pale pinkish color s we really are hoping that we have three females and this one is a male. Figure we are just going to have to watch close since we would'nt want three males to one.

 

[nachoqtpie]

That's kinda what I'm hoping too.... one of the mallards bills is more of a muddy color than the other... so I'm HOPING that it's a female

I can deal with 2 females and only having to rehome 1 male... that would make my choice so much easier.

 

[nachoqtpie]

Okay... so I've been really studying the Mallards. One of them is developing more of a muddy brown bill versus going more yellow/orange. The one that has the muddy bill, it's wing feathers are more of a purple blue, where as the other with the yellowing bill has more of a green blue, and has a slight green sheen to it's head. What do you guys think of that? Change anything?


(Can you see I'm REALLY trying to have more than one hen?? LOL)

 

[GoingQuackers]

Do you have pics to post? See if you can snap some well-lit pics of beaks and backs. I'm not an expert by any means but I can certainly sympathize with your dilemma, so I'll try to help.

 

[nachoqtpie]

Sure... here they are together so you can see the different colors of their bills

 

[nachoqtpie]

And here they are from the sides. Do you need a shot of their backs?

Suspected male (his wing looks purple-y in this picture)



Suspected female

 

[nachoqtpie]

And then there's this one just because I thought it was hilarious...