My duckling doesn’t look like it’s supposed to??

[jennasips]

Hi y’all,

I recently got a duckling to provide some company for my drake. I drove 2 hours to this poultry farm in the mountains. They had hundreds of various birds on the farm property. The owner told me that my duckling is a Silver Appleyard but the duckling is now 7 weeks old and looks nothing like it’s supposed to. She even pointed out the ducks on the farm to show what the duckling will look like when grown and they were so beautiful.

Cheese (the duckling) looks exactly like my Pekin duck. Fluffy and yellow as a baby and now Cheese is pure white! I would think that Cheese would have gotten their fully feathering by now but Cheese is still powder white with no signs of other color feathers coming in. I am also unsure of the sex and I’m not sure if anyone could help with that as well. Cheese is still chattering and chirping whereas my Drake is raspy and loud. This makes me think that Cheese might be a female. Cheese is also super tiny compared to my Pekin. Cheese looks like a call duck next to him! If anyone can help determine if the breed was possibly mixed up and what the sex may be that would so helpful!

Thanks for reading

 

[ruthhope]

Either the duck raiser was mistaken or you have a silver appleyard with a color suppressing gene. I do not know what happens to the color of the bill and feet when a duck has a feather color suppressing gene. Maybe some others here can tell us

 

[Miss Lydia]

@Pyxis is good with color genetics.

That is an adorable duckling

 

[Pyxis]

So, occasionally you do get white Appleyards. It's because white is a recessive gene, so both parents can be carrying it with the breeder none the wiser. And then those two breed and surprise, white ducklings.

However Appleyards are a larger breed, so if this is a small duck, it seems more likely that she's possibly something else. She is of course only 7 weeks old though so she may grow more.