Sexing Ducklings (Please check here first :D )

[Wifezilla]

maralynn28 you have a boy and a girl

At approximately 3 months old, should the tail feather already be curled if it's male?

not yet​

 

[evansc3]

Thank you. I still have hope that it's one each.

 

[toadbriar]

hmm I have one loud quacky & 2 hoarse peepies. They sorta yelp! Maybe I can get a recording.

 

[Javamama]

I also got Metzer Welsh Harlequins that are supposedly sexed, but 2 had dark bills and heads upon arrival. Time will tell, and I will take it up with them if I have 2 males out of the 6. Going by bill color alone these would be male, so I guess I'll have to trust that they vent sexed them.

 

[CityChicker]

Metzer's "Welsh Harlequins" do not have the sex-linked bill color. Some may, but I doubt it. Almost all of the pictures I have seen here of their WH do not appear to have the sex-linked bill color (at least not as day-olds, there may be some differences later on, but I don't think it is the result of a sex-linked gene per se). WH that *do* carry the sex-linked bill color look a lot different than many of the pictures posted here on BYC (from Metzer's in particular). As far as the hybrid layers (like Metzer's also sell), they are sexed by down color and that should, at least in theory, be relatively fool-proof. Dances with Ducks already made an excellent post on that.

 

[lovemeduckins]

Sorry to bump this up, but I have a question.

With my two Pekins, I knew what they were after 5 months. Drakes with curly tails and lovely voices.

Now, we have two new babies (only 4 mos in July). We are pretty sure our Swedish Blue is a female. However, the Khaki Campbell, who has all the plumage/bill/feet signs of a female, rarely speaks. If it does, it sounds like a far-off choo-choo train! It peeped while young, but not much, as the Blue is such a chatterbox. When the KC gets excited, though, it will let off a HUGE squawnk. Unlike ANYTHING I have ever heard before. It is hilarious.

So my question is, with this train sound, no hissing, not even sounding like the Pekin boys, has anyone had a female sound like this? Obviously time will tell, but we are building an aviary and wish to introduce everyone in the next month.

Just curious.

Thanks,
Angela

 

[Wifezilla]

Metzer's "Welsh Harlequins" do not have the sex-linked bill color. Some may, but I doubt it.

Mine did. All three girls had pink bills.

As for your khaki, the young males have female looking plumage until they get their "big boy" feathers.​

 

[treldib]

Quote:
NOT true....our ducks came in a shipment from Metzer Farms that was to be split up and it contained among other breeds, 1 male and 5 female Black Swedish ducklings. They all had orange and black pied feet (2 toes per foot were orange, 2 per foot were black) and after a recent visit to the person who has 1 male and 4 females from that group (we have a female, with Orange and Black feet) they all look identical except for different sized bibs on each individual duck and a drake feather on the male.

 

[jeaucamom]

Quote:
So the WH sexing by bill color is not for all WH? Is that what I am understanding.. that is only certain ones that have been bred that way?

Does anyone know if Holderreads has that or not?

ETA: They only sell straight run and I have 6 gold and 6 silver coming and would like to know of course which is which

 

[Dances with Ducks]

Yes, you can sex Holderread's WH that way, Holderread was actually the person who discovered this and wrote about it in his book. It's only the poorly colored ones like some of Metzer's that you might not be able to sex by bill color. Although to be clear, even Holderread states that it's a little better than 90% accuracy. I had a couple out of about 60 last year that I had a hard time guessing their sex because the bill color was sort of in between what I would expect of either sex.