question on mallard ducks?????

[mycountrycabin]

i have 2 female mallard ducks and 1 of them has lost alot of its feathers and has started to regrow feathers the color a male has and its head is turning green,can ducks change their gender?

 

[shy]

How old are they? I think mallards look the same until their second molt. So you may had thought you had 2 females. A green head definitely means it is a drake.

 

[fowlfriends]

I've never seen it happen, but in Dave Holderread's book, Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks, he talks of his favorite Mallard duck, Tiny Tina, when he was a boy. When Tina was 8 years old, after years of successfully laying eggs and rearing ducklings, they had to change her name to Tiny Tim.

For those of you with a copy of the book, the story is on page 215

 

[DuckLady]

How old are the ducks?
Males feather out the same as females at first.
Then when the breeding season is about to start they get their nuptial plumage which is the greenhead gorgeous colors, while the females stay the same lovely brown. After breeding season, the drakes go into an eclipse molt and feathering which is the same as the females again. In the spring it starts over.
My mallard drake is just going into his eclipse molt and in a few weeks I will only be able to tell him from the females by his quack.