Calls?? Color?

[L0rraine]

My neighbor is unable to live on-site because her house suffered some fire damage. A while back she acquired a half dozen black call ducks which are all in a semi-protected outdoor pen. Over the past few weeks she's had 3-4 hatches and moms and ducklings had been doing okay until recently. The weather has been horrible and wet here and she says the quality of the pen has deteriorated rapidly. The ducklings very recently started disappearing and dying and she contacted me, quite distressed, to see if I could house her remaining ducklings in more safe situations. Two were apparently one day olds and I just happened to have a broody hen who had been on an empty nest for nearly two months who took the two babies immediately -- and has become a doting mother and both ducklings appear to be thriving. The other four are older, though one is definitely smaller than the other three.

I have a couple of questions. Her calls are supposedly all black (with the green sheen) but, even given that blacks start out with that little yellow patch, many of these appear not to be pure black. At least two have some eye striping (though one has it only on one side). And I'm not sure if their bills are little and delicate enough for Calls (though I've never had Calls before). The neighbor does have a pond with wild mallards -- is it possible one of those drakes could have been the dad? Other than her six Call ducks, she has only chickens so it doesn't seem any other domestic drake could be in the mix. I haven't actually seen her Calls, but she usually has pretty good specimens of whatever breed of animal she has.

I know these pics aren't great, but is there anyone out there who has raised calls that might have any thoughts?

 

[tonini3059]

Their bills are really long for calls so if that is what they are they are definitely pet quality. On color I would guess black bibbed possibly magpie.

 

[ducklover15]

Black East Indie maybe? That sounds like the kind of ducks she has.

 

[L0rraine]

You know, I had just come to the conclusion that maybe that was the case, that she thinks she has Calls when they are really BEIs. The bills really are elongated compared to what one would expect to see on a Call. But even the ducklings seem bigger than what I would expect. I've only had Runners and a few Magpies, but these ducklings don't seem much different from the standard ducks.

Though the ducklings still look mostly downy, one has some significant green feathering at the tips of one of its wings.

At any rate it will be interesting to watch them grow. I'm hoping though, that she is set up to have them back in a few months, because the last thing I need is to have ANOTHER breed of ducks or chickens to worry about --

!