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Yay! How old are yours now?
According to Dave Holderread and someone else who raises Hookbills that I've been talking to in Illinois, the Bibbed Hookbills are supposed to be better layers. I've noticed though that the solid Dusky ones that I got have
much more of a curve to their bills than the Bibbed ones do.
Just a week.
I did get bibbed HB eggs from Birch Run Farm. Those are at least 4 weeks old now. They are starting to show their brown feathers and curved bills.
Oooh, you'll be able to sex the 4-week-olds soon (if you can't already)! I was picking mine up, listening, and staring at their little feathers every day at that age!
The trick is to look at the feathers on their rump, above their tail. In the males, those feathers are all dark, laced with a green sheen, and in the females, they're laced in caramel just as on the rest of the body. The same holds true for the feathers on their heads in their juvenile plumage. I was sure on the sex of all of mine besides 1 before their voices changed.
I'm thrilled - I ordered 5, hoping for 2 drakes and 3 ducks, and ended up with 2 drakes and 4 ducks!
They're all named now: the solid Dusky drake is "Buddha", the Bibbed drake is "Zipper", the solid Dusky girl is "Lexi", and the three Bibbed girls are "Sparrow", "Meadow", and "Izzie". I'm starting to run out of names here - I have 29 ducks on the property right now (and one little Dark Campbell duckling in the 'bator, halfway zipped!), and every one of them has a name!
I've been working on the new Stanbridge White pen - I wasn't planning on keeping them, but I
love those ducks - they have to be my new favorite breed, after the Hookbills.
