are there differnt colors of these ducks? can i see pics of everybodies welchs, are they good layers? what breed come from from them?
There are two phases of this duck, gold and silver. Gold was the original but silver is the more common here in the US. Here's a bit of info about them. http://www.muscovyduckcentral.com/thefarm/welshharlequin.html There are a LOT of variation found in this breed and a lot of what you see aren't good representatives of the breed. The duck in the top photo on my page has a good body but her head shouldn't be fawn like that. The bottom photo is a good representative photo of what they should look like, the silvers, at any rate.
I have 6 Harlequins that came directly from Holderreads last April. It's 4 ducks (3 gold and 1 silver) and 2 silver drakes. Personally I think the silver duck (female) is the most beautiful of all our birds with the possible exception of a nice mallard drake. The Harlequins have started laying but the eggs aren't that big, maybe medium-large with an occasional XL. I'm hoping for a size increase this spring. So far the mallard hen has been my star with huge eggs and dependability. I'll try crossing them later. I've heard so many great things about Harlequins that I really do think they'll prove themselves when they mature more and the days get longer. Do a search of this forum for more info and you'll get several of my posts that say pretty much the same thing as here. I saw a photo of a so-called Welsh Harlequin from some one of the bigger hatcheries, and it just wasn't right at all. It looked half Pekin. Choose your stock well. Here's a few photos showing the difference between silver and blue. Unfortunately I didn't catch the difference in the speculum (wing feather) color. The silvers have a blue speculum, goldens have bronze colored ones. But the body color is different, too. The silver ducks are lighter overall with more contrast between the base color and dark speckling. The goldens have a slightly deeper beige base color with dark bronze speckles. And another thing: some of these photos were taken in direct sunlight that sort of washed out the color and made the ducks look lighter than they really are. They're pale all right, but not really white. Shannon Harlequin Creek
Welsh Harlequins are reputed be more likely to go broody than most of the lightweight class of ducks. Their eggs are a little smaller than khaki campbell or runner eggs, in order-runner, kacki campbell, welsh harlequin: Here's a video of a beautiful flock of Welsh Harlequins Here are some BYC threads we have had about Welsh Harlequins https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=182383&p=1 https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=124541&p=1 https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=200117&p=2
Fogbubble your welsh harlequins are beautiful!! I really notice the difference in quality with the Holderread stock! Here's my silver harlequin Bridgett her first summer, she is partly decended from Holderread stock. She has good coloring but I think her body is a little too blocky to be SOP and most of the time she has a little bit of a mohawk on the back of her neck
If you want Harlequins...go with Holderread. They have great stock, great people to deal with. I have 6 Golden from them and 5 Ancona. One of my Drakes, Draccus One of the ducks, Lilly Nibblets: Here are my two ducks and three of the Drakes
Hey Cetawin! How is the Quack Academy doing? I just looked over your page again, I completely ache to do do a setup like that!! Have you separated your breeding trios yet?
