Confused. Sexing help?

[ShayBaby]

Some of you may have seen me post about Daffy before (don't judge, I'm not completely unoriginal LOL he was the spitting image of "the" Daffy as a youngster), regarding what-the-heck breed or mix he may be. Never figured that out, by the way. Anyways, ever since he was a couple weeks old, I was POSITIVE he was a he by his voice. He's always had a raspy, chatty voice, never an actual quack like my gals. I also have a mallard drake and he has always sounded similar to him. However, he is now roughly..3 months old, maybe a bit more, and will occasionally amongst his raspy, chatty peeping sound off an obvious QUACK, especially when being held. Will males actually quack when they're nervous..scared..irritated..?
Here's a short video clip (hopefully) of the questionable quacking with a bit of his usual raspy chatting:
[VIDEO]

Also, I don't know of any breed or possible cross that would create a darker head like mallard-derived drakes in females?? His head is obviously darker and separated by a white ring from his body. It's not (yet?) a solid dark or green color, but kind of grey with light flecks in it, but still obviously darker and separate from the body, which makes me think male.

His body feather colors are VERY colorful. I tried to get a photo here next to my Silver Appleyard hen to show the coloring is almost exactly the same.. dark with the pretty gold lacing. This would make me think female as most drakes have similar boring "mallard" coloring.
(He's on left, she's on right. Sorry for the terrible lighting, they were under a red lamp)

Oh and no curly tail feather yet, but may still be young for that.

 

[Pyxis]

Daffy's a girl, I would say, going by that quack That 'raspy chatter' is just the quieter version of talk that girls use. Think of the loud quack as a shout and quieter stuff as their inside voice. Those are some wacky colors on a girl, though. Maybe somebody else will know what's up with that.

 

[ShayBaby]

Holy duck!

Daffy may actually be Daphne?! Thanks for your response!
I'd love to hear if someone might know what's up with her/his coloring! The head is so weird for a gal.

 

[ShayBaby]

Bumpity bump. I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts.

 

[ShayBaby]

No duck folk have any ideas why a female would have a dark head? Or a male quack?

 

[Amiga]

Well, ShayBaby, this is something (scratches head).

There are stories of some interesting phenomena about gender with ducks. Holderread includes a story about a duck that apparently changed gender.

And I recently compared notes with another duck momma and she found that if she had a group of ducks without a drake, one of the girls would sprout a curly tail feather. In my flock, no one had a curly tail feather (all girls) until after I brought a drake into the mix. My runners are little Amazons, with no interest in male attentions. The buff girls see it differently.

Anyway, Vier has a curly tail feather now.

I also recall that whereas in humans, women are XX and men are XY chromosome-wise, in ducks the females have two different chromosomes and males have two the same. Don't know how that might inform the discussion, just something I remembered.

 

[ducklover87]

Deff is a girl. But not sure what's going on with her colors. Maybe due to being a mix or something?

 

[ShayBaby]

Thanks, Amiga! I didn't know that about the chromosomes, that's very interesting! I had heard about the curly feather thing. I wonder if it would cause manly heads, too?

I do have a drake with them, but he's a puny runt mallard smaller than a call; Daffy could squash him like a bug just by stepping on him

so maybe he doesn't count. I'm going to find that Holderread story! Sounds strangely worth reading!

And thanks, ducklover! I guess I'll have to get used to calling him "her" after all this time. Hehehe. I'm sure "she's" (good start!) a mutt, but the only breed I could think of at all that creates a darker head in hens is Welsh Harlequin, but even then they're usually tan/beige. Come to think of it, if you replaced all spots that are tan on some WH gals and replace them with dark..you'd nearly have Daffy. :/ You might be on to something with the mix thing.

 

[ShayBaby]

I did a little digging in BYC archives and found that some WH gals can have darker heads when they're young, and go through multiple color phases until they're full grown. Perhaps since she's only 3 months old, she'll color change again sometime..? Still doesn't explain her weird baby color, but maybe that's a mutt thing..
(Baby Daffy. Some may remember we thought she was a runner. She doesn't stand up as straight anymore, definitely not a tall, slender runner. And she's always been the biggest. She's HUGE now, for her age, and very wide. I call her my turkey lol.)

 

[ducklover87]

Here I'll share a pic of one of my girl welsh harlequins that is dark so you can compare as I can't tell from the lighting what she really looks like. I know what you mean I have an Ancona who I called a boy and turned out to be a girl. Her name is Han solo lol.

this my welsh harlequin girl named puddle. You can see she has a darker head. I'm hoping these pictures help you figure out what daffy is.

ETA: I'm still not sure why she would look like that as a baby. Its nothing close to what Welsh's normally look like.