I have been incubating eggs from my greenhead Australian Spotted ducks. I have all greenhead hens but now I am not so sure about my drakes. I had three drakes in the mix to start, I sold one with two hens as a trio because I had only taken him home with me to keep my older drake from picking on my younger drake. The two young boys were ducklings last year and they are related but they were slightly different ages so I think they are half brothers and not full brothers. I kept the one that had the best coloring and he has a definite green head. The other one did not seem to get his green head back after he went into eclipse plumage so I thought it was a lower testosterone issue. I need a drake that can cover my hens and he was the most timid so he is in a trio with just two hens now. Even though the drake in question is gone, I am hatching eggs he fertilized along with my young drake.
So, here is why I am posting in an old thread. A week ago, I hatched out a lighter colored (silver in appearance) duckling that seems to be a bluehead and now today I hatched out two more. Is it possible that this drake was a greenhead out of a pair of blueheads and is now producing bluehead ducklings? His coloring has not returned to green but I don't think ducks can change from one color to another color, right? I am trying to better understand the color genetics I am dealing with in my hatches. It is sort of a pleasant surprise to have another color. Some of my young hens seem to have molted out a lighter color with almost white feathers surrounding the spots on their rumps and tails so I was wondering if that is a product of linebreeding (the breeder I got them from believes in allowing pairs to form naturally so there could be some inbreeding in their genetic make-up. I like the color variations but I am not sure if they would be considered a good thing when it comes to breeding to a standard.
