Does anyone have any really fun mixed ducks?

[TattooQ27]

DH and I have finally decided on the ducks we want to complete our flock and we are hoping to let them all breed together to see what kind of fun colors/combinations we can come up with. I am guessing we will only have 1 hatch a year since we know that pet quality mixes don't sell well and we wouldn't want to keep them all. Does anyone have any really neat looking mixed ducks? Pics would be great!


Also if anyone has any information or tips on breeding for certain colors (such as, if a black ancona mates with a blue swede could you get a duck with blue ancona markings?) I would love to hear it!

 

[1lpoock]

Sorry I dont have any mixes, but Goatwalker has many and they look really neat, hopefully she'll chime in!

 

[Taylor]

i have mxed chickens and came up with many beautiful colors. but i would not mix ducks. they can be weak like and die young, mixing duck breeds makes bad ducks. i would stick with pure breeds.

 

[TattooQ27]

Quote:
Interesting, I haven't heard that before. Even Dave Holderread says it should be ok to mix breeds. His only caution is that the mixed breeds could be infertile. I will look into it more though.

 

[priss]

Oooh Goatwalkers duckies are gorgeous. Show them Goatwalker!
I got what have I got? Probably nothing as amazing as what people are going to show you, but I thought I'd show you mine! My three ducks have a white call as a dad and their mum is...well nobody know what their mum is. She is shaped a little bit like a round fat mallard. She's pure, pure black with one tiny spot of white under her neck. They know that she has some mallard in her because she had a duckling that grew up looking pure mallard. Our three girls from them came out each different. Doogie is pure white and the most call-y of them. Doog's also the littlest. Rory came our beautiful half and half. Black and white with a tiny white crest. Mr. Snoogles came out looking like someone had taken the paint from Doog and the paint from Rory and mixed it all together to make dove grey.
Oooh also, Rory's back feathers are that beautiful green/blue/purple depending on how the sun hits them.

 

[Taylor]

in my experience i've done it before and we had beautiful! ducks but they become sick and die or they do not grow at a rate at which they are supposed to. like if you have dark campbells and white campbell ducks and if you mix them you should be safe. but maybe if you cross a mallard with a call duck it may not turn out just right.

 

[TattooQ27]

Quote:
They are very pretty! My DH would love the black ones, I will have to show him when he gets home. Thanks for sharing!

 

[TattooQ27]

Quote:
I have some really cute mixes right now and they are doing super but they are only a couple of weeks old. I will have to watch and see how they grow over time though. Right now they are growing like weeds but I suppose that could change over time.

 

[priss]

Any excuse lol!

 

[duck walk]

I have some pure bred Pekins and several mixes other than...I have 38 eggs in the 'bator from them, all of them, and I candled last night...there are ducklings in every one of them...I had 42 in there and 4 did not have developement...the rest? I am going to be up to my butt in duck poo pretty soon...I sold 30 mixed eggs to a woman N of me and I called her last week to see how successful her hatch was...to quote her when I asked how many hatched? "Every darn one of them! " And they were mixes...

So I don't think too much of the mix=infertile theory...not trying to be mean or anything...I just have not seen that yet and don't expect too unless you get breeds mixing that are so far apart in type and then I just dunno...