Male or Female?

[Kschwartz]

I know, i know.. another gender question?

But this really has me stumped.

I have 2 Rouens, who are 7-8 weeks old. They are almost fully feathered and have the pretty blue/purple feathers on their wings. But I am just stumped when it comes to finding out if they are males or females..

One of the ducks started getting its quack at around 2 weeks, so I assumed it was a female. The other one started quacking later on, around 5-6 weeks so I thought it was a male. Both of their quacks sound like female quacks (from what I have read here on BYC, because I have never had ducks before so I have nothing to compare to). But here's the weird part.. in the sun, on their heads it almost looks as if there is a green shimmer to their heads, like males.

I've also heard as they get older that the drakes get yellow beaks, but is that really accurate?

I'll try to get some pictures up later to help.

Thanks.

 

[Speceider]

Forget the green "shimmer". Green is a structural color of the feathers. Even the green of an alternate plumage mallard is the structural color of black.

Rely on vent sexing, tertial coverts, or voice.

Clint

 

[lovin my birds]

My males beak is green while my females beak is yellow with black in the middle. It sounds like you have two females. Some develop quicker than others. On my i could see that by 7-8 weeks my males head around the beak started getting darker than the females color, since it was starting to turn into the green head.