Can someone help tell me if our ducks are M/F?

[silversealilies]

We're first-time duck owners, and were given 6 Silver Appleyard eggs to incubate. 5 hatched, and we were told if their feathers came in white, they're girls, if they're brown, they're boys, and if they have green heads, they're most likely boys.

Well, we thought we had 2 girls (white feathers) and 3 boys (brown feathers), but noticed recently the white ones are getting really dark feathers on their heads. Then today I went out to see them and one of our "girls" has VERY obvious green coming in all over her head!

It's making me second guess what any of them are! Can someone help? Here's a video of all of them - I pause a bit on each individual duck. Number one is the one we thought was a girl, but now has green coming in on her/his head. Number two is mostly white with some brown, and gets more dark feathers on her/his head every day. Number three is all brown/speckled and never had any white. Number four as you can see is mostly brown, but has a white chest and is getting a dark head. And number five is almost a twin of number three (all brown/speckled with no white).

Any duck experts out there know for sure? They might not even be Silver Appleyards!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/u97MPABN5tZjVzw19

 

[Duck mommy 2019]

three boys two girls definitely

 

[Duck mommy 2019]

i would suggest rehoming the girls as soon as possible though

 

[silversealilies]

Which ones are boys and girls in the video though? Brown ones definitely boys and the mostly white ones definitely girls?
And rehome the girls because the boys will get mean and horrible with them?

 

[Duck mommy 2019]

white 3 are boys, brown 2 are girls. if you keep just the boys they will be best friends and won’t fight. if you keep them all, they’ll overmate the girls and fight each other everyday.

or you could do what i do but most people do not want to. two seperate coops. one for the girls and one for the boys. kept seperate ALWAYS.

 

[silversealilies]

The woman we got them from has boys and girls and they’re fine together. Is it because there are more boys than girls that we need to get rid of some?

Does anyone else have any experience with this or advice?

 

[Duck mommy 2019]

you can have all of one gender and it’ll be good but if you keep both you need 2-5 girls per drake depending on how aggressive they are. they will overmate and kill the girls

 

[HollowOfWisps]

We're first-time duck owners, and were given 6 Silver Appleyard eggs to incubate. 5 hatched, and we were told if their feathers came in white, they're girls, if they're brown, they're boys, and if they have green heads, they're most likely boys.

Well, we thought we had 2 girls (white feathers) and 3 boys (brown feathers), but noticed recently the white ones are getting really dark feathers on their heads. Then today I went out to see them and one of our "girls" has VERY obvious green coming in all over her head!

It's making me second guess what any of them are! Can someone help? Here's a video of all of them - I pause a bit on each individual duck. Number one is the one we thought was a girl, but now has green coming in on her/his head. Number two is mostly white with some brown, and gets more dark feathers on her/his head every day. Number three is all brown/speckled and never had any white. Number four as you can see is mostly brown, but has a white chest and is getting a dark head. And number five is almost a twin of number three (all brown/speckled with no white).

Any duck experts out there know for sure? They might not even be Silver Appleyards!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/u97MPABN5tZjVzw19

I agree with the 3 boys and 2 girls. Female appleyards will also have an orange/yellowy bill while the males have a greenish yellow bill. The reason Duck mommy2019 suggested adjusting your male to female ratio is because having more males than females will result in your females being over mated to the point of severe injury or death. That isn't a "maybe it will happen", but rather garranteed with having 3 males and only two females. Now that is not saying you can't have a flock of drake's comfortably mixed in with hens, but the male to female ratio must be balanced. A general rule of thumb is to have at least 4-5 females per drake which you can adjust more or less based off of individual drake's temperment. Some drake's are very sweet while others on the opposite end of the spectrum will repeatedly overmate hens to the point of injury even if he has a surplus of hens available.

 

[silversealilies]

Hi all, following up and need help!!!

We found a home for our two girls and were planning on just keeping the boys. All 5 are still with us as the person taking the girls is on holiday.

Anyways, just today, one of the boys started attacking another boy (there’s no mating yet), and by the evening they had completely ousted the boy who was being attacked - so now we have 4 ducks as a group and one abandoned, they won’t let him eat and attack him in the coop.

We thought of separating them but don’t know who to separate. If we remove the girls, will the dominant boy now always attack the other boy (even without girls around)?

Help!!!