Hermaphrodite duck???

[Duckadia]

Is it possible to have a hermaphrodite duck? We are very puzzled by one of our Muscovies at the moment. He/she is bigger than the girls, but much smaller than the boys. Big feet, hisses like a boy, head shaped like a boy but has girl shaped caruncles. He/she is old enough to be able to visually recognise the sex, but he/she is just so odd! Is there a possibility he/she could really be both?

 

[PsychoChicken]

Well it happens with people... seems like it should be able to happen to any creature.

 

[Mike Winters]

probably. a female can turn into a male if her ovaries stop functioning right birds have a different sex chromosome set ZZ for male ZW for female so technically all birds are by default male. like mammals are by default female. that's why male humans have nipples because we are all on a female template.

 

[Oregon Blues]

It's possible. It's more likely that it is some dysfunction in the hormone system

 

[Duckadia]

We have discovered our he she is definitely a he she. He/she has a little weenie, but he/she is nesting

 

[Mellisa]

I just posted this in a FB group:
"We have a lot of ducks; Muscovy waterfowl, to be exact. They are not true ducks though, so when one breeds with a regular duck, the offspring are sterile; mules.
Someone dumped one of these mules in our pasture at some point. I watched this beautiful girl grow up and knew there was something off about her.
Her head is very much a female (hen) Muscovy head. But her body type is too big to be a hen and too small to be a drake (male). And she has long, slender legs but BIG feet. Muscovies have short legs; hens are slim and drakes are thick and stocky. Hens have smaller feet and drakes have really big ones. This girl has really big feet.
Another thing that struck me as strange is that she vocalizes. Muscovy don't make much noise. The males hiss and the females chirp. They only make slight quacking type noises when they are riled up. But this girl makes duck type noises just walking through the yard.
All of the drakes like her and try to mate with her. She never stands for it. She runs away. Then one day I saw her mount another hen. And I saw her MATE WITH the hen!
So our 'girl' was actually a 'guy' and no one in the barnyard was any the wiser. I had to separate him from the rest of the males because I felt so bad for him. I named him Caitlyn. He has a very active sex life with a handful of hens we keep in a coop. They roam the yard together during the day.
I was closing things up tonight and Caitlyn wasn't in his coop. I found him pretending to be a hen, sitting on around a dozen eggs behind the haystack.
I'm so confused about this bird! Now I'm wondering if he has both male AND female body parts. I won't know unless I isolate him to see if he lays an egg. But I know he has a penis, because I've seen it. Is he/she a hermaphrodite or just super confused?
This is my life."
I'm afraid to let him sit on the eggs because he may get them all started then walk away. This is so confusing!

 

[Miss Lydia]

This is interesting. Maybe keep him up for a few days to a week and see if an egg shows up?

 

[chickens really]

Being it's a mule it has different characteristics of both species. Hens do breed other hens. I'm thinking it's a Hen.

 

[Mellisa]

Well, Caitlyn walked very quickly from the coop to the haystack first thing this morning. He/she is sitting on the nest. I am resisting the urge to give Caitlyn more fertile eggs, because I don’t know if this is true broodiness or just a confused drake playing house.

 

[Mellisa]

Ive seen a corkscrew penis after mating.