Crested Ducks

[tiedyemommy]

We have 3 White Crested ducks & 1 Black Crested duck. Since we can't tell the three whites a part, we call them the "Three Musketeers". The brown one doesn't really have a name, at the moment, but occasionally I'll refer to her as "Brownie". Poor Brownie had a full crest the day she came to live with us, but now it's quite thin and small...she also doesn't stand as tall as the Musketeers do, and her body shape is just slightly different. She doesn't appear to be in pain, and has no trouble getting around as well as everyone else...these are just things I've noticed since we got them. Could it be our Black Crested isn't a Crested after all?

Does anyone else have Crested ducks?





- TieDyeMommy

 

[TLWR]

Your black one is crested.
I have a crested mallard duckling.


I was at the local shelter today and one of the cats had a name of "that animal"
so brownie seems way more personable LOL

 

[tiedyemommy]

Your black one is crested.
I have a crested mallard duckling.


I was at the local shelter today and one of the cats had a name of "that animal"
so brownie seems way more personable LOL

I try not to give insensitive names to my animals...although, I once had a cat I would have probably named "that animal" just for how mean it was. Ha-ha!

- TieDyeMommy

 

[tiedyemommy]

So, until we know for sure, we're assuming all of our Crested are female...but earlier today one laid on the ground and kind of quack-hissed while others pecked at her crest & one stood on top of her (smaller than the bottom duck, so nothing happened, just standing and pecking at her crest). What kind of behavior is this? The bottom duck also lifted her tail in the air, much like a cat when presenting herself to a mate...all of the Crested sound the same, and none have curly tail feathers. Does this sound like I have drakes in the flock? We already think our Pekin is male, but all he was doing was pecking at her crest while she was down.

-TieDyeMommy

 

[Kevin565]

So, until we know for sure, we're assuming all of our Crested are female...but earlier today one laid on the ground and kind of quack-hissed while others pecked at her crest & one stood on top of her (smaller than the bottom duck, so nothing happened, just standing and pecking at her crest). What kind of behavior is this? The bottom duck also lifted her tail in the air, much like a cat when presenting herself to a mate...all of the Crested sound the same, and none have curly tail feathers. Does this sound like I have drakes in the flock? We already think our Pekin is male, but all he was doing was pecking at her crest while she was down.

-TieDyeMommy

My ducks do that when they are mating. It sounds like your ducks might be inexperienced when it comes to mating. If they're making a loud quack and don't have any drake curls then it appears you have all females.

 

[tiedyemommy]

My ducks do that when they are mating. It sounds like your ducks might be inexperienced when it comes to mating. If they're making a loud quack and don't have any drake curls then it appears you have all females.

As far as I can tell, all of our Crested have loud (female) quacks. None of our ducks, not even our Pekin, have curled tails...they are all still young (3-or-4 months old, is my guess), so perhaps some of them will be looking/sounding different soon. But what I witnessed yesterday sure looked like some sort of mating dance. We shall see.

- TieDyeMommy