I've committed over-duck. And I didn't intend to. Long story short, I started with two Rouen females. This spring I got 2 Pekins, 3 Rouens or Mallards (Barnyard combo), and 1 Cayuga (had 2 but one died ) Anyway, as they got bigger, I noticed they were all females. So, I saw an ad on Craigslist for ducklings at 5 for $8 and I got some Khaki Campbell x with Rouen, Swedish and Cayuga, hoping for a drake. Well, two of my young Rouens are getting green heads and one has a drake feather. I think I messed up. But, I have to admit, I like them a lot. They're cute, if messy, and watching them puts a smile on my face. And my llama adores them. He loves guarding them and watching them. So, when do the drake feathers show up? When do their voices change? Can you tell before 4-5 months?
You gotta love ducks! They are soooooo messy but so cute! I bought my pekin sexed as a male, and he's now almost a month and I can hear his raspy low quack noise. It's way quieter than when he was a duckling and cheeped loudly! and different from a normal quack that a female would have.
It doesn't hurt to have a male, just so long as you don't have more males than females since they will beat up females trying to mate them. Since you have several females and only a couple of males you shouldn't have any problems, or at least I never have.
I'm currently over hatching. From miserable luck with shipped eggs (so I ordered 4 times as many as i wanted hens, to hedge my bets) to 100% developing. Happens to the best of us.
We started out last year with 4 Indian Runner ducklings, hoping for females for eggs. Turned out to be 2 and 2 which wasn't ideal but was ok. We lost one of the males in the fall and one of the females this spring. Someone took home take out. We went to a poultry sale this spring hoping to find some adult runners and pick up a couple more females but came home with 6 Khaki Campbell ducklings instead. After the female runner was taken this spring the other girl started laying erradicly and in weird places. We decided to let her keep a couple of eggs just to see if she would set. Weren't really paying much attention and she didn't seem to be either. We went away for a weekend and decided to take the eggs away when we got home on Sunday since she didn't appear to be going set. When we got home on Sunday she WAS setting...on what we later discovered was 11 eggs! I knew this would be way more ducks than we wanted or ever intended to have but I didn't have the heart to take them away. They started hatching yesterday. This morning we are up to 7 ducklings. They are so stinking cute! But I am now actively looking for Indian Runner duck homes. LOL
