Ancona Ducks

[wildsam]

Sorry, I have no experience with breeding and colors... I'm a first time duck owner.

I have another question for those that have a bit more experience. My Ancona hen is 5 months old and started laying last week. She's been laying a day or two, then taking a day off. I'm chalking this up to her body still getting used to laying, etc... While still watching for any signs of egg binding. Is this normal, especially for a newly laying hen? How often do your Anconas lay?

Yes it is due to the fact that she's new to egg laying and her body still needs to adjust. But also with winter approaching she could also stop laying til spring altogether. Nothing to worry bout as this is nature.

When egg bound she will show certain behavioral symptoms and not have much energy. You can google this or maybe a more knowledgable 'ducker' can give you hints on that.

 

[sunnyfishy]

So I'm getting what I thought are 3 anconas this coming weekend at a local-ish farm, but upon inspection of pictures in this thread, I'm wondering if perhaps the ducks are not fully anconas and are mixes. The male looks like he's definitely all-ancona, but both the females have grey bills. Do anconas always have yellow bills? What do you guys think?



Here is a picture of them from the original owners.

 

[AuroraSprings]

As the females age, their bills will get more and more color, eventually being solid. This can happen at 2 years old or 10 years old, ya never know when. But the more she starts with the sooner it'll be solid.

 

[sunnyfishy]

Well I feel greatly relieved--these ducks I'm getting are all 2 years, or at least 2 summers old. I'm so excited for anconas!

 

[JoyAnna]

These four Anconas were added a week ago. They were hatched 9/13/14 and I had just brought them home. Sorry for the blurry photos: they would not stay still for the shot and I had a new camera which I will learn how to adjust. I gave up on Boondockers and found a woman locally who is raising them. They are now out in a dog crate inside the new duck house where the three older ones can begin to get used to them. The light colored one almost immediately found its way through the mesh of the crate so I had to add some boards around the bottom for a week or so. I am so eager to see what colors they turn out to be. My drake is a lavender (or blue), one duck is black, the other is a tricolor (I don't want to hatch her eggs since she is loads of fun but definitely not a good representative of the breed.)

 

[SilkieSensation]

So I'm getting what I thought are 3 anconas this coming weekend at a local-ish farm, but upon inspection of pictures in this thread, I'm wondering if perhaps the ducks are not fully anconas and are mixes. The male looks like he's definitely all-ancona, but both the females have grey bills. Do anconas always have yellow bills? What do you guys think? Here is a picture of them from the original owners.

The bird on the right has very nice markings. Front left is over marked & back left is under marked. These can still produce nice babies, but be aware you will also have some with both extremes in the markings.

 

[learycow]

So I'm getting what I thought are 3 anconas this coming weekend at a local-ish farm, but upon inspection of pictures in this thread, I'm wondering if perhaps the ducks are not fully anconas and are mixes. The male looks like he's definitely all-ancona, but both the females have grey bills. Do anconas always have yellow bills? What do you guys think? Here is a picture of them from the original owners.

As said above, not too badly marked but the body types are very off. So you may want to get some better quality ones if you want to breed to better anconas. The one on the right has a very long neck and the bill where it connects to the head is dipped too much. The black hen looks very small. Those are the biggies

 

[sunnyfishy]

Thanks for the info! I was thinking I might have to get some better looking females to hope for some better breeding stock. We picked them up his weekend without a hitch--very sweet birds. The owners got them from a registered farm down in MA originally that's on the livestock conservancy website for Anconas so that's disappointing to hear they aren't wonderful specimens body-wise. They seem small to me, but maybe I'm just too used to pekins--they seem to be about half or a little better the size of our male pekins. I'm amazed they will already eat out of our hands and seem to have 0 stress to their new home.

 

[learycow]

Thanks for the info! I was thinking I might have to get some better looking females to hope for some better breeding stock. We picked them up his weekend without a hitch--very sweet birds. The owners got them from a registered farm down in MA originally that's on the livestock conservancy website for Anconas so that's disappointing to hear they aren't wonderful specimens body-wise. They seem small to me, but maybe I'm just too used to pekins--they seem to be about half or a little better the size of our male pekins. I'm amazed they will already eat out of our hands and seem to have 0 stress to their new home.

 

[sunnyfishy]

They came from Splendid Toad Art Farm, and actually, our male is on the very top picture of their anconas :3c I wrote them this afternoon to inquire where they got their stock from originally, because from what I see, he is one of their starting ducks when they got anconas to breed. So I guess he's something like 4 years old, as is the light female.