Muscovies or mules? Hen/drake?

[ORHens]

Hello, hoping someone with more experience can help me out here. I picked up 4 "muscovy" yesterday from a local farm. Now, its clear I have one gorgeous drake, as planned, and one lady duck (the buff/brown pair).

I am less sure about the dark ones, which I was told were "nearly adult teenager ducks." They are actually slightly larger than the brown duck, yet still have some fuzz on the back of the neck. The farm said they only have muscovy ducks, and a few random mallard females around which they thought couldn't mate... Of course, they definitely can, and I am concerned that I may have gotten 2 muscovy/mallard mules, and drakes to boot!

I have only ever had 3 muscovy lady ducks before (and though I am new I love this breed dearly!), and they all looked like my brown duck here, and developed carunkles well before they were the size of these dark ducks. But I have no experience with mules and ID, etc.
Can anyone help me here-- what do you think are the likely 1) sex, 2) age, and 3) muscovy vs. mule/hinny of these sweet ducks. I'd love to have 3 muscovy lady ducks with the drake (the plan), as these are all so sweet and shy and gentle and I want to keep them. But, I will need to make alternative plans if I've got a bunch of drakes :-(. Thanks for any input!

 

[casportpony]

Looks like four purebred Muscovy to me and the two black ones look like young drakes maybe? If the two black ones are the same size and larger that the brown hen I think they are male.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

I agree. If the two young ones are as big as your female, they look to be drakes and all look to be full muscovy.

 

[Jpat]

Mules

 

[Jpat]

Mules

 

[ORHens]

Hmmmm. One other clue: they are still chirping. I didnt think they could be drakes at this size without some carunkling, but they are definitely as big as the hen, or a wee bit bigger. I read that drakes will go dumb around 12 weeks before developing the hiss/cough. These have to be at least 12 weeks right? They aren't trilling as much as a chirp-trill thing, also. Which I why I started to wonder about mules. Anyway maybe that helps....

 

[sourland]

A brown pair and two young Muscovy drakes - too young for caruncling to develop.

 

[learycow]

They all appear to be pure muscovy. Both the black ones are drakes

 

[ORHens]

Well sounds like I have a pair and 2 muscovy drakes. Darn it. Haha, so much for picking out older ones to be sure I got females! I will learn eventually... until then, I guess I will start to think about processing some drakes :-(

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

Hmmmm. One other clue: they are still chirping. I didnt think they could be drakes at this size without some carunkling, but they are definitely as big as the hen, or a wee bit bigger. I read that drakes will go dumb around 12 weeks before developing the hiss/cough. These have to be at least 12 weeks right? They aren't trilling as much as a chirp-trill thing, also. Which I why I started to wonder about mules. Anyway maybe that helps....

I don't know what that means about going dumb? My muscovy drake is just a day shy of 13 weeks. He's the same as he has always been - by that I mean there is no difference in his intelligence. He has a huff type hiss right now and he still peeps.
Looks like you have your answer though.