Looking For a Welsh Harlequin Guru

americanchicks

Songster
11 Years
Jun 26, 2012
364
379
246
Buckley, Wa
Hey all! This is my 4th year raising silver Welsh harlequins, 3rd breeding. I feel that I have a well established flock now (6 hens and a drake) that I can start breeding for show. I have never shown birds before and want to start with my Welshies. Now I have a copy of the WH SOP but without really understanding show dynamics it reads like stero instructions. I'm hoping someone here can help me, answer some questions, and let me know if I'm on the right track.
So I got a new drake last year. I was told he comes from Holderread farms. He is the only drake I am using. So far the bill color sexing on the ducks has been phenomenal. 100% accurate (I can vent sex too) I only kept 2 of the first hatch, picked the largest and the lightest billed female and darkest billed male. I do not know which hen they came from. Is it possible to tell if the color and body shape looks good? I feel like In the female the black markings on her feathers are not clean cut. Not sure if that means anything. How old dose a duck have to be in order to know if they make the cut? These are only the first ducks im growing out. I have 11 more and more in the incubator. Thanks
Female
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Male
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Hey! I'm new to breeding this year, but I've been studying the SOP and thinking about showing in the future too. Your birds look really good! Our birds' genetic line comes from Holderread farms with a couple birds from Quacky Acres having been added in 2006, so they should have pretty solid genetics, right?

To start, I did a sort of experiment where I kept the lightest and darkest of the ducklings from our first hatch in April (the difference was pretty minor; light on top center, dark on bottom center).
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The experiment was a success because I was super surprised to see that the lighter duckling developed darker plumage, while the darker duckling is now the lighter of the two!

Here they are at about 5 weeks:
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And here they are as of June 18th with their shiny new speculums 🤩 :
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This is mom and dad with the clutch of 8 she hatched in May:
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I hope we find your guru cuz I'd love to know more about these gorgeous birds!
:D:D:D
 

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