My new Welsh Harlequin Drake

[CityChicker]

That is a Gold, kcardella. You have some pretty ducks there! That is what my Golds looked like as ducklings too, almost completely yellow (the Silvers had quite a bit more dark tipped down).

The brown dilution of the Gold also turns the feathers that would be black to brown in the adult duck, so yours looks Gold as a duckling and in the feathered pictures. On my Silvers, the blue wing speculum began to show by about 6 or so weeks.

 

[Wifezilla]

Shelley is mostly white with black markings. She does have some blue on her wing...but only on one side...LOL

kcardella, your ducks look just like my Wendy & Bebe.

 

[kcardella]

Thank you CityChicker!

Then I think my new boy is a gold also! He is completely yellow with no black tipping at all.

 

[CityChicker]

You're welcome! That is at least three of us that had yellow ducklings end up being Gold phase. I can't remember who it was that first posted here that the ducklings with dark markings are Silvers, but they seem to have been 100% correct (again, at least with mine). The bill sexing on mine was 100% correct as well.

I suspect that so many females are showing up that are Gold (especially from Holderread's) because they are probably intentionally doing sex-linked matings. That might give the impression that Gold males look radically different from Gold females simply because there are far less of them. I really questioned the color of my own ducks and ducklings too because it appeared that all the males were Silver and all of them females were Gold (until the Gold duckling with the "borderline" looking bill ended up being a drake). Again, I suspect that this is just because the Gold females are a result of a sex-linked mating.

 

[CityChicker]

Ooops! I don't mean to write a book here, LOL, but I forgot to say- I think the body color can be very deceptive too. It is obvious that WH vary substantially in color. I think I posted this link before, but Holderread's put up some new WH pictures a few weeks ago.

http://holderreadfarm.com/photogallery/welsh_page/welsh_page.htm

It looks to me like in the side by side photo, the Silver female has slightly more Gold coloring than the Gold female! Some of my Gold females were so light, they were almost white! The Holderread page also shows Silver ducklings as having the darker markings. I don't remember seeing that before, but that is interesting and again confirms what someone said here previously.

 

[Wifezilla]

Well it looks like the girls have decided that even though Tweak is a icky boy with cooties, his cooties aren't TOO bad. He is now allowed to go in the pond. (When he first got here he was immediately chased out.) Shelley and Bebe still give him the stink eye on occasion, but Wendy, Uno and Chrissy think he is ok...for a boy

 

[Goat_Walker]

AWWWW! He sure is handsome wifezilla

 

[kcardella]

They sure look happy there! He is one handsome boy.

 

[Wifezilla]

He is from Holdereades...(via CityChicker

). Appearance-wise, he is MUCH higher quality than the Metzer birds. Not complaining though...the girls are very healthy. His legs are looking better all the time (they were peeling a bit when I got him). His speculum feathers are a gorgeous blue-green. I can't wait for his head feathers to finish changing. His breast should get a bit redder too.

I was feeding them all some chopped cabbage yesterday and he got so caught up in getting treats, he did not realize he was eating right out of my hand. The he suddenly froze and TOOK OFF to the other side of the yard....LOLOL

He is warming up to me despite this little set back

 

[CityChicker]

Yea!

I am glad he is settling in well. My other WH do that same thing with the treats. They are so easily spooked. LOL, they will eat their chopped lettuce out of the bowl while I am holding it. All of the sudden something will spook them and they run off screaming. It is hilarious. Anyway, I am so happy to see he is doing good.