Mallard Question (New Picture)

[desertdarlene]

This is a photo of a duckling that hatched around the time you think yours was. The photo was taken on August 11th (11 days ago) so that would put her at about 6 weeks old. Since then, she's grown out a lot, especially in her tail feathers and body. Her wings are still on the short side like in the photo.

I think she's part Appleyard, but she's mostly a mallard. You can see her bill is pretty orange and blue as are the webs of her feet. She also has a prominent blue patch, too.

 

[duckluv]

Cute, desertdarlene!

 

[tia]

She is so pretty. I hope mine turns out that pretty.

 

[Tia Z.]

tia - Francis was wild, he was rescued from a community pond after the mom was hit by a car, but I had him since he was probably 2-3 days old and held him alot so he was very tame. They really are very sweet breeds, you two are going to have lots of fun together

desertdarlene - that mallard is so beautiful, I love the contrasting colors, very different than the mallards common to this area.

 

[wpalmisano]

OK, something I know about ! I breed purebred mallards. Usually they are almost impossible to tell apart until 6-8 weeks. They all look female. The way I tell them apart is that at about 6-8 weeks bill color becomes pronounced. Males bills turn a pale yellow, females bills turn orange with black patches. As if to confirm this, the males get bigger after this. A few weeks after this the first adult plumage shows up on the males around the neck and chest, and after that the heads start to turn green. I have read that it can take a year for adult plumage to fill in but mine were looking really adult in 18 -20 weeks. This year I have one male, born in Feb., his name is 10, after his leg band, lol, who is the biggest most freakish mallard I ever saw. He can fly, every hen mallard dances around the pen for him, he rules the place. He had full adult plumage two weeks before anybody else, and if weren't for his metal, riveted leg band, I would think he snuck in from somewhere, because there was never much of a difference until about 14 weeks.

 

[daegorn]

wow I missed so much talking...my mallards fly to some where else and come home when they want. So, tonight I saw that one out of 4, the rest visiting some where else, is getting green! Hatch date is April 26th 2010. I will try to get picks. I wanted them to stay more on the wild side with as little interference as possible so they would go off and do there own thing.

 

[PlumTuckered]

Here are my Mallards, they are almost five months old. My Drake has an olive green bill.


Michelle

 

[tia]

Your mallards are so pretty. I guess that I will have to be patient for a little while with mine. I sure appreciate all the feed back that I've gotten from everyone. Thanks so much!