Welsh Harlequin Breeding Thread - People who are breeding or want to breed their WH's talk

[DUCKGIRL89]

At first, I thought all my hens would not be good breeders, then they molted, and one of the hens turned out beautiful! So did my drake!, so I will be keeping them to as breeders, but if I can get my hands on a better drake (im sure I will) I will cull this one by selling him. I would wait at the least 7-8 months to be sure. Afyer the first molt you would know.


I'm not a very good judge on drakes, but with hens, deffinetly stay away from the hens who have eye stripes, orange legs (you want black), and "gold" coloring, soft fawn is good though. My nice hen has a little soft fawn on her back, not to much though. The standard calls for silvers, not gold. Thats the american standard. English standard calls for gold I think.

Oregon blues, I didn't know you had welsh harlequins!... Or are you talking about silver apples?

 

[NCFF]

I will be planning on breeding my ducks. I am getting 10 from Metzer ( 4/18). I know I am not starting with presumably the best stock, but you start with what you got. So lets pretend I get 50/50. I plan on holding all girls over winter and cull undesirables before the following winter, breeding the following spring from 2 year old Ducks. Now the boys are a different problem. I have no desire to winter 5 boys. I would like to cull(bucher or sell) down before this winter to 2 males or 1 if someone stands out as far superior. Just as with my Dokings , I do think type is more important than color. Perfect color without the correct bones for my farm is useless. Any tips on type selection?

 

[DUCKGIRL89]

You want both mals, and females to have a very long, lean body. With legs spaced a good way apart. You dont want breeders with "tight" legs. I got my 4 (1 male, 3 females) from metzers, 2 ended up being very nice!

 

[DUCKGIRL89]

I have a WH Externally pipping! YAY!

 

[sherylreno]

Very nice! How's it going now?

 

[Ravie]

I ordered (Welsh) ducklings from Holderread's in February and they arrived today. All strong and healthy. Unfortunately, I have 6 boys and 4 girls. Not only that, but none of the boys are gold (I had my fingers crossed) and all the girls are! I am guessing he must have been using a Gold drake. =)

I purchased 4 TSQ, but he didn't mark which one those were. I probably should have specifically requested that!

Anyway, I suspect nobody here lives in the Indianapolis area, but I now have 5 more drakes than I wanted. So if you're looking for some nice Holderread lines, you know where to find me.

I also have 11 more Harlequin eggs from KSWaterfowl in the incubator for Tuesday. Hopefully I get some girls out of that batch!

 

[Tahai]

I ordered (Welsh) ducklings from Holderread's in February and they arrived today. All strong and healthy. Unfortunately, I have 6 boys and 4 girls. Not only that, but none of the boys are gold (I had my fingers crossed) and all the girls are! I am guessing he must have been using a Gold drake. =)

I purchased 4 TSQ, but he didn't mark which one those were. I probably should have specifically requested that!

Anyway, I suspect nobody here lives in the Indianapolis area, but I now have 5 more drakes than I wanted. So if you're looking for some nice Holderread lines, you know where to find me.

I also have 11 more Harlequin eggs from KSWaterfowl in the incubator for Tuesday. Hopefully I get some girls out of that batch!

Hi Ravie...are you determining sex by bill color? If so, don't be so hasty to get rid of any ducklings. Per Wanita at Holderreads, Mr. Holderread has concentrated his breeding of WH to more closely match the British Standard, so bill sexing has become less reliable. Apparantly the ducklets bill color is closer in color to the draklets, so it is easy to mistakenly cull out females. She says he doesn't put much weight on bill color anymore.

From my own experience, I can see truth in the above statement. Going by bill color on the day I opened my Holderread box, I should have had 8 drakelets and 5 ducklettes. They are now 8 weeks old, and judging by quacks, I've got 7 ducks and 6 drakes.

In regards to the TSQ, when I got mine, the tail feathers were trimmed straight across to differentiate them from the production quality birds. This was noted on the lid of my box.

 

[NCFF]

My WH from Metzers are now almost 8 weeks old. They are pretty cool. I am so glad I got them. They are great foragers and it is easy to heard them into the pen at night. I lucked out and got 7 ducks and 3 drakes. I wanted to make my first cull before winter. I wanted to cull out a pair. I have ahard time seeing the body confirmation and 30deg angle. Not really sure what I am looking for?Most of the females are similar in color dark bills and fawn coloring(some darker than others) one female has a splotchy bill(allot of yellow)she stand out as being different. On the males 1 has a light olive gray bill rust chest w/ well shaped hood, another is darker, more vibrant hood but is irregular shaped and bill is yellow, and the third is almost colored as a light female( no hard rust on chest but with a dark drake hood. I will post pics . Everybody is out in a 30' x 50' yard with 5ft high fence and a big pool all day w/ my 2 pairs of Pilgrim Geese.

 

[NCFF]

I have a WH Externally pipping! YAY!

Duckgirl ~ I am going to get a LGD next year. Do you run yours with your ducks. I was eyeing the Anatolian breed. How have they worked for you?

 

[sherylreno]

I am now on my third hatching this year. I had a wait list with my first hatching and finished it with the second hatching. My third hatching has 5 ducks sold so far, we shall see how many more are wanted. In 2 weeks all the ducks will be hatched then. My SQ WH is sitting on eggs too and they are her eggs, I can't wait to see how she does with the new ducklings.

The bill color issue sounds correct. I must make the decision upon hatching because my customer's ask for either hens or drakes, well my last hatch was extremely hard to tell. I kept what I thought were 2 ducks but instead ended up with a duck and a drake. The duck has a very black bill but she was loud so I kept her and I was right. The drake though had a mixed bill, slightly dark with yellow at the top. He's feathering very nicely too. Now I just need to see how much of SQ he will be.

My first hatch was exactly correct with the bill coloring. I thought for sure I wouldn't have any issues with it until this second hatch. I shall see what I get with this third hatch. Let's hope the bill coloring comes through.