My welsh harlequin project! (Please read)

[DUCKGIRL89]

I really love my welsh harlequins! They are beautiful birds! But I really want to have better stock... But my mom wont let me order from holderreads. Sooooo the only way I can do so, is to breed and cull ALOT of birds!

Does this sounds cruel to be breeding, raising, and rehomeing ducks? The drake I have now has a much better body, then the hens. And his color looks great (being from a hatchery) as for the hens, not so great

the one hen is to big and has a eye stripe under her eye, but has good markings on her back, also bad coloring... her and the drake would produce OK looking ducklings, but they wouldnt be close to SQ.

The second hen has good coloring, good weight, but bad markings, and also has a eye stripe. Therefore not producing many good ducklings...

the third hen has no eye stripe, ok coloring. But very bad markings. Would produce ok ducklings.

So if I hatched ducklings from this quad, and kept a few ducklets, and a drake, and bred them together, would I get any worth while ducks?! I got a few lectures from a few people on here about rehomeing ducks and stuff, and that it isnt nice. So I would really be thankful for any support I get while doing this project. It will be a really chore, and take a year or 2, but I know in the end it will be worth it! I just dont want to be keeping a really rare breed, and not have good quality, cause then its really not helping it right? Thanks again

 

[JulieNKC]

Quote:
Do you have 4h or anything like that in your area? If you could get in touch with someone through there you could get some contacts of breeders around you, and an idea of what to look for in ducks. I don't show or breed, so I don't really know but that would be where I would start if possible. Also I think it would be better to keep ducks from the breeding and breed back to your current drake, instead of brother/sister breeding. That's what I plan on doing with my quail until I get new birds to introduce in.

 

[DUCKGIRL89]

Quote:
Do you have 4h or anything like that in your area? If you could get in touch with someone through there you could get some contacts of breeders around you, and an idea of what to look for in ducks. I don't show or breed, so I don't really know but that would be where I would start if possible. Also I think it would be better to keep ducks from the breeding and breed back to your current drake, instead of brother/sister breeding. That's what I plan on doing with my quail until I get new birds to introduce in.

I will be in 4h next year. And everyone here has mutts, khakis, and pekins. Theres only one welsh haequin breeder here that I know of. And his birds dont have the correct bill color, barly ANY markings, his drake doesnt even have a green head

he calls them welsh harlequins, but they dont look like them

Id like to try and get some eggs from a SQ breeder. But my mom wont let me

Breeding back to my good drake sounds better. But kinda icky

id like to try and get a drake from holderreads

but never will I ever replace my drake now

 

[KansasKid]

You might try and make the point to your mom, nicely of course, that it would be a lot cheaper and a lot less time consuming and trouble saving to let you order from holderreads. Even if you just order 4 TSQ harlequins and 6 regulard ducks to reduce your price total it would be way cheaper than collecting eggs spending electricity with an incubator (buying an incubator) starter for the ducklings, waterers, water itself, maintenance diet for X amount of time (the big money investment), pen supplies for more space, time, and miscellaneous supplies.

 

[RAREROO]

Is there a particualar reason why your mom doesnt want you ordering more ? Like KansasKid said, it would be much cheaper to buy good quality to start with and work from there then spend money on generations of work, and Holderreads prices are very reasonable, even cheaper than a lot of hatcheries and it would be for exhibition lines birds . So if you could make that point to her, it is a much more reasonable approach. I believe his minimum is 10 so you could just get a few of the Harlequins and fill the rest with the cheap assorted ones that are a little under $3 I think and that would save you a few bucks if thats what shes worried about.

But for the other part of your question, all of the good exhibition breeds there are today, got that way by people breeding lots of birds and culling down to only the best . So I dont see it to be immoral when you are trying to improve and preserve a breed and there will likely be plenty of people who would be glad to have your culls as pets or layers or whatever.

And on the thing about breeding daughters back to the father drake, I saw you mention that somewhere else too asking if it would be too gross, but the ducks, and most any other animals have no morals when it comes to inbreeding so they dont know the difference or care and its completely fine, and going back to breeding for improvement, there are plenty of breeders that have done it to improve their birds, its called line breeding when you breed generations of daughters back to an original father. So that part is fine too.

But like I said, Holderread has really great prices for the quality he has, so if you could talk your mom into it, that would be the best route, you could even see if you could find a person or two that you know that lives near you and you could all combine an order and split the shipping costs.

 

[DUCKGIRL89]

I would LOVE to order from holderreads! BUT, my mother is a very stuborn person, and would r at her me go through a ton of hatching then order from another hatchery. So my only route is to be hatching from my birds now. Dont get me wrong. With time, and hatching, and culling. I could get SQ WH's from my birds, no problem. I just wont have them till next year, or the year after

I would also like to introduce new blood to my birds. It still seems icky to breed ducklets bred from my drake back to him

but thats what im gonna have to do with my anconas.....

 

[Oregon Blues]

Doesn't your father want ducks? Get him to buy 10 top show quality from Holderread and you take one of his excess drakes home with you.

Time goes by fast. It won't be all that long before you are old enough to get a place of your own and can have any duck you want. Please go to college so you are qualified to get a job that pays enough so you can play with ducks. Work hard in school now and you can get a scholarship to go to a college that is away from home. Then you find a house in the country and get roommates and you can have your ducks while in college.

In fact, knuckle down on that math and get good grades and maybe you can get into vet school. Some of those vet schools have poultry divisions and you could get the college to house and pay for your duck project. The world needs more vets who are qualified to work on birds. Everybody wants to study small animals and treat pets, where the money is.

 

[DUCKGIRL89]

Quote:
actually my dad just gave me $100 to get some ducks

dont worry

i have good grades. straight A student

and proud of it!

and im not looking for a new drake, i want better marked hens. my drake looks fine

 

[DUCKGIRL89]

well heres a idea. i get some TSQ welsh ducklings from holderreads, and take the three best hens from that order, take them to my house, and take my not very well marked hens to my dads! yes? no?

 

[70%cocoa]

Yes, that sounds like a good idea

Going for Holderreads is the way to go. They are the real thing.

It's not wrong to breed and sell the offspring you can't keep or don't want. People were talking about buying in adult ducks and then deciding on another breed and selling those and doing that again and again. But it sounds like you have really settled on the Welshies, which is great. They are a lovely duck.

I think you'd make a great avian vet. You should go for it!!