debating between khakis and welsh harlequin

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

I talked to my friend, she is ramping up in the egg business and has a passel of ducklings but has no layers yet, she is quite excitedly taking 3 welsh hens and a drake and i am going to take 2 hens. Works out great and she is terrific with birds . I am very excited is there any way to identify older vs younger welsh harlequin? I was going to suggest she take the younger ones as she is shooting for egg production, if i can identify them.

 

[Everose]

I do believe their legs get darker as they get older, any with bright orange legs probably haven't started laying yet (mine got dark legs right after she started laying). As they age their plumage gets darker with more fawn coloring, although some birds are just naturally dark. If they have large moist vents they are laying but if their vents are kinda puckered and dry they probably aren't laying. That's as much as I know about welshies and their age but maybe someone else knows more.

 

[Everose]

Oh! They will also get less streamlined with age (kinda like humans), this will show as a kinda low hanging chest and bigger bum too.

 

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

we made it home with them, I gave 4 to my friend who has some khakis right now, and ours are getting to know our other 8, they need names, these may or may not be good breed standard examples but I think they are quite lovely and am very happy.. they are a tad larger than I expected them to be but the kid that was raising them locally had them in a very nice coop and they were very clean, free range with a pond, I think in future I will go back to him for more.

 

[EllieandOlive]

We have had both. I prefer welsh because they are less flighty and much prettier. I actually recently rehomed all of my khakis (I had like 18). All of my ducks have been daily layers regardless of breed. The khaki eggs I got were the same size or smaller than my chicken eggs so they never really impressed me. One pro to khakis over welsh is they eat less, lol!

Also as far as breaking up a flock, as long as they can be seperated in pairs or more, they will be fine.

 

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

A question we have about the wing color band, one is brown and then other blue, one of the bunch was decidedly purple. What is up with that?

 

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

So so far the integration is not horrible, but our runners, historically the lowest on the totem pole are establishing their dominance over the new ducks, nothing violent just not kind acceptance either. they aren’t really skittish, but aren’t quite ready to eat out of our hands and they don’t seem to know what peas are all about. They have been on a green mountain organic layer feed 17percent protein, but i hope they will take to the all flock the rest eat. I may try all in the duck house tonight, if it works I think everyone will be better off.

 

[Dux]

A question we have about the wing color band, one is brown and then other blue, one of the bunch was decidedly purple. What is up with that?

My silver phase Welsh Harlequin has a blue wing band and my gold phase ones have a brown band. I think the silver phase Welshies are prettier (but don't tell the gold ones I said that! ).

 

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

So i got the new welshies and my existing crew inside, petunia, one of my runners was beating up in the poor welshies pretty badly so I decided i would put the kennel in there for them. I know from my last experience introducing the runners that things should work out, but it is pretty stressful. I feel bad, the girls have had a rough day.

 

[Dux]

So i got the new welshies and my existing crew inside, petunia, one of my runners was beating up in the poor welshies pretty badly so I decided i would put the kennel in there for them. I know from my last experience introducing the runners that things should work out, but it is pretty stressful. I feel bad, the girls have had a rough day.

Poor Welshies! The bullying sounds hard to watch. It's great you put them in the kennel to give them a bit of a break. Fingers crossed that with a bit more time and getting to know each other through the wire that they'll work things out without a lot of physical contact.