Do GIRL ducks do this??? UPDATE

[Sunny Side Up]

We have 2 Pekins that are 21 weeks old. I bought them from the feed store & sexed them myself, hoping to get 2 girls. I find it much more difficult to ID female ducks, I don't know for certain that there isn't a little penis to see or if maybe I just didn't invert the vent far enough. So I've been really curious to learn if I identified these ducks correctly.

They both look alike, straight tails with no curly drake feathers, and they both sound alike, loud quacks and no whispery rasps. One is slightly huskier than the other, that's the only difference.

They hang out by themselves and don't mix much with the other Khaki Campbell ducks & drakes. They have their own little house to sleep in at night, and recently I've been finding ONE egg each morning in there. Maybe only one of them is laying, or maybe they're taking turns. I keep hoping for the morning when I'll find 2 eggs in there and I can know for certain.

I'm certain that the eggs I'm getting from the Khakis are fertile, they each have a great big bullseye on the yolk. I never see that sign on the Pekin eggs.

The behavior that is concerning to me is that sometimes when they're swimming in their pool one of them will try to mount the other one. They never seem to complete the transaction, I never see actual copulation or even a penis poking out of the top duck. Do girl ducks do this too? Especially when they don't have a drake of their own? Could this behavior be inhibiting one of the ducks from laying, if she imagines herself to be a male? The only way we have to tell them apart is a zip-tie on one duck's leg, so I don't know if it's always the same duck attempting to get on top.

Please let me know what you think. Thank you.

Update post #11

 

[Duck Keeper]

Yeah, I've read in many places that same-sex ducks will do this, or even try a goose! (In my experience, the goose doesn't have any fun with a tiny duck trying some weird stinkin' stuff. ; )

My ducks were gender and species confused for a while... Don't ask...

 

[froggie71]

Yes, it does happen. I had not seen it before our drake got hurt and was recuping in the house. That was when I'd see one of our girls mounting the others.

Found out that it is a dominance thing.

 

[ScoobyRoo]

I've heard that the drakes will not get the curly tail feather until after their first molt. Other than that, If it's a young'in it may not have the 'deed' quite figured out yet.

Or not getting much cooperation from the hen. Just a thought.

 

[Duck Keeper]

Drakes may not get a 'curl' in their tail when they're young, but they definitely get certain feathers that have curling tendencies. At least all of mine have.

There's usually two that start to exhibit the 'drake feather' curl early on if he is indeed a drake.

But then again, mine always get the 'kwek-kwek' thing instead of a true quack too. So I think yours are females.

 

[Squirtchy2009]

i dont know if this has relavence but my two male rabbits did that once, scary thing is... they were 5 years old and brothers

 

[FenDruadin]

If your ducks are quacking loudly, then you have girls. I am pretty sure this is almost always, if not always, true. The mounting behavior is a dominance thing--if there is no male claiming the dominance in their little "family" of two, then one of the females will take over.

I'd put money on it that you have two girls. But I might lose money.

 

[Kev]

YES females WILL mount each other. Often they will even take turns, but it is also common for one or several try to stay in the "female" position.. They simply have a strong urge to mate.

It is NOT a dominance thing, saying "it's dominance" is just something to let people be comfortable with the fact that ducks in general are rather "hyper sexual".. so, females "deprived" of a male will try to engage in mating behavior with each other.

When I had just one female goose and a couple female muscovies, the muscovies were daily trying to get the female goose to mate with them and often the goose would climb on top and try to go through the mating motions and it was exactly like you said, it never looked like a normal mating of male/female waterfowl.

In fact when I finally got a gander, the goose stopped trying to mate with the muscovies(she simply bred normally with the gander and ignored the muscovies).. and the muscovies were more than happy to have the gander breed them too. It's simply them having a very strong instinct to mate is all.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Thanks for the reassurance, I'm really hoping to find two eggs in the Pekin house one morning then I'll know for certain. I wonder why neither of the two Khaki drakes haven't attempted mating with the Pekins, they sure keep the Khaki duck hens busy. These Pekins often hang out with my Embden goose pair, the kids call them the White Webfoot Society. I think the goose only lays a few months out of the year, and when she's not laying they don't mate. I wonder if the gander will attempt to mate with the Pekins during their next laying season. The Khakis keep laying year 'round, I wonder if the Pekins will too.

 

[MistyValley]

The ducks we got this year are almost 17 weeks old and the drakes have their curled tails and have had for 3-4 weeks. I can't remember the breed of the one set but the others are Mallards. Since finding this thread I'll have to post pics of the ones that we ordered and get someone to identify them for me.