Welsh harlequin or..?

needlessjunk · Mar 7, 2016

nelleyoukai said:
cymbaline said:

I watched the video a few times. I do hear a girl somewhere but I don't think it's Holly? The noises that I think are coming from Holly do sound like the beginnings of a male voice, although I still hear a lot of peeping too. Can you do a video where you pick Holly up and carry her away a bit? That will usually cause them to vocalize quite loudly, lol.

Click to expand...

Haha I picked her up and carried her away and she was silent, she's only loud when I put her back in with the others which makes it difficult. The two white ones are the girls, and the raspy boy sound is the Seth, Holly is still the only one making babyish sounds, so that's the peeping you can hear. I've got another video where I've put her back with the group So they're all chatting away but because I'm so focussed on her you can sort of see what noise she's making lol.

I also agree that "Holly" is a boy. The peeping at this age means boy. Very handsome though!

PotatoWaffles · Mar 7, 2016

needlessjunk said:
I also agree that "Holly" is a boy. The peeping at this age means boy. Very handsome though!

Agreed. Never had one peep so late and turn out to be a girl. Late peepers = boys in my experience.

nelleyoukai · Mar 7, 2016

Thanks everyone

Unfortunately I've been told that a 3 drake to 2 duck ratio is really bad so 'Holly' may be needing to find a new home.
Does anyone know if there is a way to make it work? My partner is adamant in keeping all the ducks unless its dire.
We're considering getting another female to even out the odds and separating the boys and the girls at night and maybe for part of the day?
or are ducks really terrible horny monsters that will kill the females by over breeding them and we will be left with not much choice but to get rid of our boys.. (I would have no idea and my mother in law likes to exaggerate.. She was also convinced that domestic ducks dont fly but my pekin girls sure showed her wrong when they flew halfway across the yard and into the pond!)

Its so depressing that our boys are way more friendly than the girls.

Also, Seth was born on christmas eve, is it normal for him to be going through a moult? I went out to feed them this morning and there are feathers EVERYWHERE. I noticed that Seth is loosing some of his chest feathers and the Pekin girls are looking a bit scraggly too and they were also born around the same time.

lomine · Mar 7, 2016

Yes 3 to 2 is a really bad ratio. The recommended ratio is at least 3 hens for each drake. Yes, hens have been injured and even killed during mating. It can happen when one hen is over mated or if they gang up all at once. A hen can also be drown if over mated in the water.

Sounds like your ducks are losing their teenage feathers and getting their first set of adult feathers.

needlessjunk · Mar 8, 2016

nelleyoukai said:
Thanks everyone

Unfortunately I've been told that a 3 drake to 2 duck ratio is really bad so 'Holly' may be needing to find a new home.
Does anyone know if there is a way to make it work? My partner is adamant in keeping all the ducks unless its dire.
We're considering getting another female to even out the odds and separating the boys and the girls at night and maybe for part of the day?

or are ducks really terrible horny monsters that will kill the females by over breeding them and we will be left with not much choice but to get rid of our boys.. (I would have no idea and my mother in law likes to exaggerate.. She was also convinced that domestic ducks dont fly but my pekin girls sure showed her wrong when they flew halfway across the yard and into the pond!)

Its so depressing that our boys are way more friendly than the girls.

Also, Seth was born on christmas eve, is it normal for him to be going through a moult? I went out to feed them this morning and there are feathers EVERYWHERE. I noticed that Seth is loosing some of his chest feathers and the Pekin girls are looking a bit scraggly too and they were also born around the same time.

In order to keep everyone you will more than likely need to run 2 flocks. One for just the females or females and one drake and the other of the remainder drakes. They will need to be completely separate.

Drakes will over breed and can seriously injure and possibly kill the females by ganging up on just one. If very common for them to have a favorite and then they will just never leave her along and tear her up. I had 1 drake to 5 females and he had his favorite 3 and was over mating them. The best solution would be to get many, many more females if you want to keep them all. I would venture around 10+ more females to keep 3 boys happy and the females safe.

It is also very, very uncommon for domestic birds to fly especially pekins. They are just too heavy to get much air. As they get older they are less likely to fly.

Birds typically molt around 10 weeks and then again around 20 weeks and then yearly

cymbaline · Mar 8, 2016

I had the

nelleyoukai said:
Unfortunately I've been told that a 3 drake to 2 duck ratio is really bad so 'Holly' may be needing to find a new home.
Does anyone know if there is a way to make it work? My partner is adamant in keeping all the ducks unless its dire.
We're considering getting another female to even out the odds and separating the boys and the girls at night and maybe for part of the day?
or are ducks really terrible horny monsters that will kill the females by over breeding them and we will be left with not much choice but to get rid of our boys.. (I would have no idea and my mother in law likes to exaggerate.. She was also convinced that domestic ducks dont fly but my pekin girls sure showed her wrong when they flew halfway across the yard and into the pond!)

I had the same ratio at one point and my boys definitely had a favorite. What I did was partition the pen into boys and girls and take them out for free-run time separately (usually only had to do that for a few months in the spring). However, I could leave Ruby on one side all by herself for some peace, and Turkey-duck with all the 3 boys, and day after day, she would be fine. One evening leaving Ruby out with them though and she was practically bald again.

Now, I'm thinking it's mainly the fault of my big buff Tony, because every time he takes after her the two mallard boys jump on him until he lets go of her and then they chase him off. It's so sweet how they protect her. Tony is really rough, and relentless, and he's kind of a jerk. Honestly he's not even a good pet, but I don't think I have it in me to sentence him to death, so I just deal with him as best I can (he may get penned off by himself for the remainder of spring if he doesn't start behaving soon though...just sayin', lol).

nelleyoukai · Mar 23, 2016

** update **

Holly is definitely a boy, he has SUCH a cute little raspy noise, doesn't sound like the Seth either.
Here's some more pictures

although they are starting to go through their first moult I think (Sethy has lost all of his gorgeous deep red plumage and is now 'whitening' up lol)

We've also just moved house and these guys are loving the place so much that even though their wings are clipped they climb up and over the chicken wire to explore!

Although our Muscovy male Speedy was so massive we decided not to clip him (was told the males won't fly) well! He sure proved wrong today! I actually snapped a shot of him flying over the fence and across the yard which I'll include haha.

Also, both Seth and Holly have been running their bill up and down my arm when I hand feed them, is that like attention seeking or love bites or something weird?