ID duck

muscovieduck · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2012 3:26 pm

I've just adopted this duck off someone I know. Apparently it wandered into their yard as a duckling and they've raised it and felt it was lonely by itself so I said I'd take it so it can live with my muscovies. It's about 3-4 months old and I'm not sure on gender, though I'm suspecting female? simply because it doesn't have a curly tail feather, its feet are quite small and its quack is quite loud, though I have no male to compare it to and having muscovies they don't exactly quack.

Any thoughts on type too? I'm guessing it's a mix of various different ones.

GaceG · **Joined:** Sun Apr 22, 2012 7:38 pm **Posts:** 1

I had one similar and mine was welsh harlequin x mallard and yes I think a duck for sure

muscovieduck · **Posted:** Mon Apr 23, 2012 10:16 am

I was searching around and found an article about campbell ducks and she looks exactly like the duck on the left in this photo from the article, except her beak is a yellowy/green/grey and her legs/feet are a fairly rich orange. And she's got a white patch on her chest/neck. I don't know if there's other types of duck that look like this though.

Sebducks · **Joined:** Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:41 pm **Posts:** 812

She looks like my mallard x female too, thats what I would lean towards. How loud does it quack? Loud is female, whispy and quiet is male.

muscovieduck · **Posted:** Mon Apr 23, 2012 10:54 am

Sebducks wrote:

She looks like my mallard x female too, thats what I would lean towards. How loud does it quack? Loud is female, whispy and quiet is male.

at the moment it doesn't quack that often, but it seems to do both, makes quiet little noises, and every so often bursts out in loud quacking, it seems quite loud, but having said that I haven't kept anything besides muscovies, so any quacking is going to seem loud to me. But then when I've bred and raised some muscovies, their voices don't really change until about 3months of age anyway, is it the same with other ducks? Maybe its voice hasn't quite matured yet. Also not sure what age they're supposed to get the curly tail feather if they're a drake? It looks like it might be moulting at the moment too.

Sebducks · **Joined:** Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:41 pm **Posts:** 812

Sometimes you can see the sheen of the green feathers in the face before the tail curls in just the right sunlight there is the faint hint of it. Sometimes submissive males don't colour fully and don't develop the curl, I don't know why, perhaps to avoid being constantly challenged by the dominant male.

flying ducky · **Joined:** Tue Mar 27, 2012 8:09 am **Posts:** 32

Hi There
I have a couple of ducks not unlike this one and the chap I bought them off is very honest and he said the one I have that is similar to yours is a Saxony/Mallard cross, and Yes! the ducks are very loud and once you distinguish the difference its glaringly obvious which are the males and which are the females.
My Indian Runners are quite loud (the girls) but we love it....
The boys are very raspy and don't actually quack as such....
She is as cute as a button, just enjoy they are very placid I find... [smilie=a_cookiemonster.gif]

muscovieduck · **Posted:** Mon Jul 30, 2012 1:24 pm

Just to update: Confirmed this duck is a girl as she's been laying over the last few weeks. Though I haven't actually seen her lay, but the eggs I've been finding are much smaller than the muscovies and the yolks are a different colour so I'm assuming the eggs are from her (her back end is also very distended). I found she has absolutely no nesting instinct what so ever though, I'm finding eggs all over the place, under the fruit trees out in the open, a couple in different spots in their shed, just outside the shed, next to their bath, near the back door, seems she just lays where ever.

BareFootDuck · **Joined:** Mon May 07, 2012 3:06 pm **Posts:** 24

G/day muscovyduck, at least she's laying, I haven't had ducks for that long, but the best way I found to get them to lay in the same place is to leave an egg there when they lay in a decent spot, or use a dummy egg.

Cheers

muscovieduck · **Posted:** Tue Jul 31, 2012 11:26 am

BareFootDuck wrote:

G/day muscovyduck, at least she's laying, I haven't had ducks for that long, but the best way I found to get them to lay in the same place is to leave an egg there when they lay in a decent spot, or use a dummy egg.

Cheers

I have a bunch of fake eggs for my muscovies to stop them finding new nest spots when I take their eggs, so naturally I assumed this would work for this duck, but definitely not! I've tried 3 times to replace her egg with a fake one and every time she lays somewhere else, I suspect half the time birds are getting the eggs 'cause she lays them out in the open with no attempt to choose somewhere sheltered.

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