Is this normal for Silver Appleyard Ducklings?

[Russell2000]

Hey everyone,

We are in the middle of our second season of hatching ducks (I utilized this forum a ton last year due to the learning curve) and things have been going wonderfully so far. We have been hatching out eggs from our own ducks but we also grabbed a dozen hatching eggs of silver appleyards from an auction for the fun of it. All of them turned out to be duds except for one that hatched a few days ago. He appears healthy and is eating/drinking on his own the only weird thing is the size of his neck. The picture below is him next to a cayuga/mallard mix that hatched the same day. Is this normal for silver appleyard ducklings or is he malformed? If so, is this likely to cause him any complications later in life? Thanks!

 

[muddy75]

@Isaac 0

 

[Isaac 0]

Neck size is going to appear different when one of the birds is standing taller than the other. Is there a chance the duckling just stands taller than the Swedish?
He looks healthy to me, so I think I might just monitor him/her and see if the neck develops into a problem, but at this stage, it doesn't appear to be.

 

[Ratchnick]

Does he always have that upright runner posture?

 

[VeryHappyHens]

Hey everyone,

We are in the middle of our second season of hatching ducks (I utilized this forum a ton last year due to the learning curve) and things have been going wonderfully so far. We have been hatching out eggs from our own ducks but we also grabbed a dozen hatching eggs of silver appleyards from an auction for the fun of it. All of them turned out to be duds except for one that hatched a few days ago. He appears healthy and is eating/drinking on his own the only weird thing is the size of his neck. The picture below is him next to a cayuga/mallard mix that hatched the same day. Is this normal for silver appleyard ducklings or is he malformed? If so, is this likely to cause him any complications later in life? Thanks!View attachment 2641765

The blue duck kinda looks like my swedish blue duckling but the black and yellow one looks like a silver applyard coloring.

 

[DrHawkeye07]

He looks normal to me. My profile pic is my first group of Silver Appleyards. He looks like he's just standing more straight up than the other one. Being a large breed duck, I would also expect him to be a little bigger than a mixed mallard duckling.