DanielleInUro
Songster
tl;dr Need to know a breeder from which to order WH eggs who's kept very true to the Holderread line, or at least someone who's kept very true to the sexable-by-bill-color part of WH's.
Hi all, I've got a clutch of quail slated to hatch on Satuday. Right after they come out and move, I want to put a dozen Welsh Harlequin eggs in and hatch my first clutch of ducklings. I have two openings for girls in my flock, so I plan to keep two of the girls and distribute the rest between two friends with farms and a third friend who's starting their own flock.
I chose WH's because of the combination of the sex-linked bill at hatch, and the personality. Any other duck that you can sex at birth without vent-sexing (which I'm scared to try because I don't want ducklings getting hurt while I fumble at it) don't tend to have the kind of traits that I really want in a duck (gentle, calm, easy to handle, lays lots of eggs, gorgeous.), or are bred from two different breeds and won't breed true.
My little backyard flock is TINY--my yard will support about six ducks, MAX, without poop and destruction problems arising. Five would be better, but I love my two drakes and could never part with either. Historically, three hens was ALMOST enough for them, but four would be better.
The other complicating factor is that "Get straight run and rehome the boys when they're old enough to sex" is NOT an option for us. We raised our ducklings like pets, and by the time they're sexable by appearance, we've already bonded with them. That's HOW we got one more drake than we needed--by the time they were even voice-sexable, we were so in love with Bork and Willie that "rehoming" them (onto someone's dinner plate, most likely!), was just not on the table.
Buying a single hen around here is nearly impossible. Nobody wants to part with a hen unless you also take some drakes, and then I'd be right back where I started. And if you DO get a hen, she wasn't raised as a pet and will never be as friendly or calm as if I'd raised her. So if I want to hatch a clutch, I NEED to be able to hatch, pick two and say "these are ours," and drop off the others with the people who want them before we fall in love with them. I'm afraid to get eggs from just any old line, because what if they bred for different traits in that line and the bill thing faded out? I might as well be raising runners or swedish blues or any other duck I love, and still have the same problem. So it seems like my best bet is to hatch from Metzer, who supposedly breeds show-quality. But am I looking at this wrong?
Thanks for reading, sorry it's long. I'm working around so many constraints here (the emotional part, the bonding-to-ducks part, the space issue, the wanting to hatch instead of buy ducklings, the drake to hen ratio) that it winds up being more complicated than I wish it were.
Hi all, I've got a clutch of quail slated to hatch on Satuday. Right after they come out and move, I want to put a dozen Welsh Harlequin eggs in and hatch my first clutch of ducklings. I have two openings for girls in my flock, so I plan to keep two of the girls and distribute the rest between two friends with farms and a third friend who's starting their own flock.
I chose WH's because of the combination of the sex-linked bill at hatch, and the personality. Any other duck that you can sex at birth without vent-sexing (which I'm scared to try because I don't want ducklings getting hurt while I fumble at it) don't tend to have the kind of traits that I really want in a duck (gentle, calm, easy to handle, lays lots of eggs, gorgeous.), or are bred from two different breeds and won't breed true.
My little backyard flock is TINY--my yard will support about six ducks, MAX, without poop and destruction problems arising. Five would be better, but I love my two drakes and could never part with either. Historically, three hens was ALMOST enough for them, but four would be better.
The other complicating factor is that "Get straight run and rehome the boys when they're old enough to sex" is NOT an option for us. We raised our ducklings like pets, and by the time they're sexable by appearance, we've already bonded with them. That's HOW we got one more drake than we needed--by the time they were even voice-sexable, we were so in love with Bork and Willie that "rehoming" them (onto someone's dinner plate, most likely!), was just not on the table.
Buying a single hen around here is nearly impossible. Nobody wants to part with a hen unless you also take some drakes, and then I'd be right back where I started. And if you DO get a hen, she wasn't raised as a pet and will never be as friendly or calm as if I'd raised her. So if I want to hatch a clutch, I NEED to be able to hatch, pick two and say "these are ours," and drop off the others with the people who want them before we fall in love with them. I'm afraid to get eggs from just any old line, because what if they bred for different traits in that line and the bill thing faded out? I might as well be raising runners or swedish blues or any other duck I love, and still have the same problem. So it seems like my best bet is to hatch from Metzer, who supposedly breeds show-quality. But am I looking at this wrong?
Thanks for reading, sorry it's long. I'm working around so many constraints here (the emotional part, the bonding-to-ducks part, the space issue, the wanting to hatch instead of buy ducklings, the drake to hen ratio) that it winds up being more complicated than I wish it were.
