? RE: Female Cayuga & White Feathers

[scooterward]

I have two female Cayugas, Kiera and Gabrielle, who are now 17 weeks old. On Sunday, I noticed a white feather on Gabrielle! I thought she was a little too young to be getting a white feather. Then yesterday when I got home, I noticed another white feather! TWO! And she hasn't even laid an egg yet. Kiera doesn't have any white ones.

How soon/early do they typically get white feathers? Does it coincide with egg laying?

Thanks!
Missy

PS: Now everyone can very easily tell them apart!

 

[scooterward]

BUMP....

anyone?

 

[jrobertson]

i have several cayugas and some of mine have what is called juvinile white. abd some have a lot of it. they will be culled later. juvinile white is passed through the genetics of the parents. meanwhile aging white is the ducks form of gray hairs and is most prominent in hens, according to storeys guide to raising ducks. it mostly starts developing between 4 months and several years. it doesn't have anything to do with her laying ability. sadly, many ducks with aging white gradually get incresing amounts of white feathers as they age and can actually end up being more white than black, after svereal years. storeys also says that hens that have aging white usually produce duckling with much more of a green sheen.

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

Here is a thread by somebody having the same thing going on:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=369235

 

[scooterward]

Thanks everyone!

I think that Gabrielle has the juvenile white feathers since she's so young. She's still beautiful.

 

[thechickenguy]

ii had a cayuga duck. she was black when she was young. but he developed white feathers to were she almost looked like a magpie. wierd huh?
thechickenguy.

 

[scooterward]

I knew by doing my homework that female Cayugas will eventually get white feathers when they get older. I just didn't know there were two kinds of white feathers - juvenile and adult.

It will be interesting to see them age.

And if I have to look on the bright side, we can clearly tell them apart right now!

For the longest time my other duck, Kiera, had a splotch of white paint on her from getting too close to the wet trim on the chicken coop. But it wore off and it was hard for us to tell the two apart (their bills are a little bit different so we had to look closely at both together). Now we can just look at either one and know who is who.

Still waiting for an egg though!

 

[jack & mommy's duckies]

It is a really good thing to have females with white feathers. That means that they will produce the green that is the breed standard. I have 4 Cayugas that are 4 months old now.......3 have white feathers (mostly down) but white non the less and they are females the other is a drake (much smaller in size...well for now) and has no white. They are just beautiful in colour. Perfect just perfect.