Muscovy ducks / duckling to adult photos.

[ruthhope]

Wow! I never would have guessed that he(?) would develop that coloring based off his(?) first photo! Does duckling beak/bill coloring help one guess, in general, what color an adult will be? My white hen always had a pink beak/bill, whereas my pied hen had pink with a black tip. Your solid colored ‘Scovy appeared to start off with a darker beak/bill. Does that mean anything at all?

I do not know about whether beak color indicates future plumage color, but Daffy's bill has reversed coloring. As a small duckling the bill was dark with a pink nail/bean. Now the beak is very pale with a dark nail/bean

The other surprising thing is that Daffy is increasingly looking like a drake -- large size, broad tail, silent; but behaves like a female. She is very sweet and likes preening my muscovy drake, and lying with her neck across his shoulders.

 

[ruthhope]

Her daffy is a black barrred. The barred ones start off with just color at the ends of the tail.

Thank you for this info. My local duck aficionados had predicted Daffy would be lavender. The "lacey" edged feathers are really pretty.