Help what ducks are these? More pics posted

[cyanne]

In your pics I see 2 hens. One white leghorn hen, which would be the one laying the white eggs and one that looks like a Rhode Island Red or a New Hampshire Red which would lay a brown egg of various shades. So, the pinkish egg probably came from the brown hen.

The ducks both look like boys to me.

Edited to add: I meant to say that I saw two CHICKEN hens in the pic, not duck hens.

 

[nettie]

they are both males, i can see very small drake feathers in both. Prehaps you have a stol-a-way, or maybe one of your chickens is actually a girl. But those ducks both have two very distinct male traits that females do not get, the coloring and the curly butt feathers

 

[Wifezilla]

I saw it too. Drakes.

As for sex changing, this can happen in fish and amphibians. Maybe reptiles. Never heard of it happening to a duck.

" Shrimp do it, orchids do it, even some tropical fish do it. Now biologists find that frogs do it, too--switch their sex, that is. A West German research team reports that females of two related frog species can become males without hormonal or surgical intervention. So complete is the transformation -- observed so far only in the laboratory -- that the newly male frogs breed successfully with members of their former sex.

Ulmar Grafe and Eduard Linsenmair detected the gender-bending while studying African reed frogs, Hyperolius viridiflavus ommatostictus, at the University of Wurzburg. The two were analyzing male life histories when a female began fighting with one of the males. "We were really excited, because that shouldn't happen -- females don't fight," says Grafe. In the days that followed, several females adopted the masculine mating stance, extending their forelegs and emitting a low-pitched whistle.

During the next few months, seven adult females -- including six previously observed to lay eggs -- developed functioning testicular nodules and aggressive behavior typical of male frogs, the researchers report in the current issue of COPEIA, released in January. Four of the seven "secondary males" copulated with females, fertilizing up to 70 percent of the eggs and generating normal offspring, the investigators say. Grafe and Linsenmair found that two females of a related species also changed sex in the laboratory terrariums.

"I wouldn't surprised if sex change is found in more amphibians," says biologist Robert R. Warner of the University of California, Santa Barbara, who notes that these frog species show similarities to several others.

Grafe told SCIENCE NEWS he did not see African reed frogs change gender during his recent three-month field trip to Zimbabwe, but "it's hard to imagine any animal doing this in the laboratory and not in the field. We just have to keep looking." He adds that scientists may have missed the switch in the past because the former females appear identical to ordinary males.

The sex-switching females had been housed in one of three predominantly female terrariums: a fourth terrarium with nearly equal numbers of each gender had no switches. "That behavior is very similar to [certain] fish," notes Warner. "There's a bigger reward [among females] to changing sex if there's more females around, because there's more chance to mate." A few fish species switch sex in the opposite direction, with males becoming females. Warner adds. But the key motivation, he says, appears the same: to maximize breeding.

Why, then, don't more creatures change gender? Warner speculates that the energy expenditure may be too high in species with more pronounced differences between the sexes.

It remains unclear whether reed frogs and perhaps other amphibians can change sex as easily in the wild as certain orchids, shrimp and fish do, says Grafe, who is now at Cornell University. He notes, however, that tadpoles of any species consistently develop into males after experimental exposure to the hormone testosterone. Male toads, he says, have a vestige of ovarian tissue that develops into functioning ovaries when testicular tissue is surgically removed."
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n9_v137/ai_8784789/

 

[Mrs. Turbo]

Quote:
I think you are asking me???? It was a hen for almost 2 years and all of a sudden got the drake colors. Never did lay eggs, and she still quacks like a hen.

 

[~SunSetsWest~]

Check this out!

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKChange.html

 

[mominoz]

I had Rhode Island reds and they laid brown eggs

 

[Luvducks]

~SunSetsWest~ :

Check this out!

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKChange.html

Very Interesting.. Thank You!​

 

[Deedee]

I have only one hen that's a white leghorn cross w/ cornish and she lays tan/brown eggs.

 

[cyanne]

Quote:
I'm confused, because both of the chickens in your pic are hens. Is the brown one not yours or are you saying that you don't think it is a hen? What makes you think that it is not a hen?

Edited to add: Oops, okay, just realized that I thought this post was from the OP so that clears up my confusion as to why they were still saying they only had one hen! Seriously, I need to take in more caffeine before I try posting!

 

[Butterball]

I'm not sure if you were saying that the redish hen in your pics is a hen, but it is. It would also lay tan eggs that may have a slight pinkish tint. Perhaps you have 2 hens. If they were all roosters w/just one hen I would think there would be an immense amount of fighting.