Male/Female Pekin

[kristinainar]

I live on a small lake and have “wild” ducks that frequent my house. I’ve always assumed this Pekin was a female, but I noticed yesterday he/she had one curly feather in his/her tail. I wasn’t sure if maybe it was just a loose feather because I’ve never noticed any curly feathers on its tail, so I always thought it was a female. I have no idea how old the duck is, but it’s definitely older than four/five months (how long I’ve been here) and it’s one of the biggest ducks that comes around. Today, it did the head bob thing with a female mallard and then got on top of her, so is that pretty definitive proof that it’s actually a male? (Not the greatest picture, but the only one I have showing the tail...)

 

[HappyDuckie]

I do not see any tail curls in that picture. Does it quack or make a sort of rasping sound?

 

[Duck mommy 2019]

it doesn’t have a curl but looks like a drake

girls mate with each other even if there is drakes

 

[kristinainar]

I’ve never heard him/her make the loud quacking like the female mallards do. I’ll try to get a better picture of what the tail looks like now and post it later. Thanks!

 

[Horserider77364]

I don't know much about ducks, but I know that females will mount each other to display dominance

 

[KaleIAm]

My female ducks quite happily mate with each other, no drake required. For my ducks there appears to be no dominance motivating their mating. The most dominant politely requests the least dominant to hop on top. Obviously I can't speak for other flocks.

I'm not the best at determining gender, but I've heard from others that the curly drake feather can fall out.

Also, I have a female pekin who has some damaged feathers follicles from being overmated before I adopted her. She has several curly tail feathers because of this. So it is possible, but probably unlikely, that female ducks can have curly tail feathers.

 

[kristinainar]

I just took this picture. The curled feather is definitely new...

 

[HappyDuckie]

It is a drake.

 

[Duckbreeder2020]

Most likely a drake. But to determine try to hear the quack, if it’s raspy it’s a drake. If it’s a an actual quack sound it’s a female