So confused! Gender of ducks

[pookiethebear]

We started out with 3 ducks - 2 pekins and 1 rouen. My son so wanted the rouen to be a male and named him gary. Well Gary featherd out in all brown and drab colors, so we assumed it was female...ds cried and we changed his name to Gertie. Well the other day I noticed that Gertie is getting a green head and a white collar around her neck and is turning grey on the belly area...so Now I do thing it is a male duck after all....!

SO, Gary is getting all pretty colors now.

As for the pekins.... One is just built different than the other. One had a curly -Q tail feather. I assumed that I had 1 male and 1 female.... They both managed to get thier tail feather sripped off trying to escape the pen and now that they are growing back they both have a curly-q tail feather! (even Gary has one now).

I give up trying to gender these ducks! They are silly and driving be batty. Do I put golf balls in the duck box anyway incase I am totally wrong here??

A stange case of the mysterious gender changing ducks!

 

[blue90292]

curly tail is male. in the future, if you have any doubt, gently shake the ducks to get them to talk. if any quack, they're female. if they kinda make a hissing quacky noise, they're male.

 

[LV426]

When Rouens first feather out they look like females but as they get older the males will get the distinctive Mallard look to them. The pekins you can tell by the quack. A female pekin is very loud and has a very audible QUACK QUACK! The males are soft and whispery sounding, almost like they are hoarse. I also find that the males talk a lot more than the females.

 

[picklespickles]

i agree about the sounds. that to me is the easiest way. i think of boys as whispering and girls as ANNOUNCING their presence.

 

[Heather J]

My Khaki Campbell loses his bright plumage in the summer, and didn't feather out as a drake until late last fall, so I can totally see that. And both my Pekins have that little drake curl feather at the back. If they both have them, looks like you've got three drakes. I don't have females of any of these breeds, but I can tell you my Cayuga hen sure is loud!

 

[pookiethebear]

They are all kinda raspy sounding when they quack. They sure are a vocal group though!

They are sweet though - not mean whatsoever. I sometimes have to wrangle them to clean the feathers out of their nose holes and they are pretty good about it. Mostly they willjust try to push my hand away from them. They never try to bite me.

Are boys friendlier than girls? I would really like for these duckies to be more interactive with me, but they are very standoffish. I am not looking for them to come running up for a belly rub or anything like that but to have them come up to me at feeding time or when we have treats for them would be nice.

 

[2manyhats]

Is the quack difference the same for runners and muscovey ducks as well? I've got a bunch of ducklings, but don't have a clue how to gender them. I know that the muscovey duck males will have redder faces, but what about the runners?

 

[henjoy]

I have runners and it is the same for them. The girls have a very noisy and definite QUACK. The boys have a much quieter raspy voice. There is a very obvious difference. I suspect it is the same for all ducks.

 

[2manyhats]

Thanks for the info. Once we get past the peeping stage we'll know the gender.

 

[LV426]

You may be able to tell at about 5-6 weeks. I've a cayuga duckling now who is very audibly a female. She still peeps but every so often a QUACK comes out and startles her. It's not overly loud but you can really hear the quack. My males went from peeps to hoarse whistling sounds.