WH arrived yesterday from Holderreads... what gender are we????

[jeaucamom]

Ok... got 6 silver and 6 gold from Holderreads... I have never held a baby duck before and kind of feel like a first time mother all over again. And unfortunately a white runner passed away 15 min after I put in brooder... that was traumatic. Then I got called in to work in the afternoon, so I had the kids take pics of their bills to try and guess gender. Out of the 12 ducks, about 7 of the pics came out

Some of these are obvious, but some are not (at least to me!)
So what do you all think?

And how do you tell the gold and silver apart?

Female

Male

Male: Casanova

Female?????

Female

Male????

????

I know the lighter bills are girls. But one of mine literally has an hour glass shape with dark on the inside and light on the outside? And a couple are uniformly medium colored??? These are the ones that are throwing me for a loop. Overall, I think I have at least 6 or 7 girls! YEAH!!! And one of them has a really, really dark head and dark almost black bill. He really stands out..he is in pic 3. My daughter named him Casanova LOL..

 

[Stormy Autumn]

I can't help you since I know almost nothing about this type of duck, but I just want to say that your pictures came out really nice because of your shirt in the background! Your ducks look so sparkly, like little princesses!

 

[duckyfromoz]

I think you are pretty close there- the last two I would say from the beak are both female - but beak sexing isnt 100% accurate. They are all gorgeous- I have harlequin Runners - and one just hatched last week has a huge black area around its bottom- I have never seen so much colour there on any of mine before. Not only are they pretty babies- as adults WH are simply gorgeous. Im sure you will and your children will love raising these little ones.

 

[jeaucamom]

I have a couple that look like one and six.. that have a uniform color that is really not dark or light.. I think those are the ones that are going to keep me guessing.

 

[maralynn28]

My WH were like that. Light on the outside with stripe/hourglass down center. They were both females.

YES! Even the one with the darker bill was a beautiful girl, she just had darker coloring.

Darkbeaked girl

Light colored girl

After molting, her new feathers looked similar to the darker one. They were both beautiful, my precious-es. We miss them a lot.

Have fun with your new babies!

 

[jeaucamom]

WOW!! I can't tell you how happy I am!! I think I might have 7 or 8 girls and 4 or 5 boys....oh my gosh.. I m the unluckiest poultry gender person in the world. I always end up with way more roos than hens. I am so glad my special duckies have so many girls.... I LOVE holderreads!

 

[Wifezilla]

The mystery duck may very well be a girl. The duck I had like that ended up being a girl. We had to change her name from Oscar to Abby

As for gold vs silver, the ducks with black tipped fuzz will be silver. The brown tipped fuzz ducks are gold.