AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

Hi All, I recently got these 3 beauties, and would like someone to ID them for me please.


Cheers
BareFootDuck

Looks like I made a Boo! Boo! I tried to change the photos I had here but seemed to have lost them
I didn't resize them properly and they looked a bit funny.

So if someone could ID these web footed friend it will be very much appreciated

Cheers
BareFootDuck

welsh harlequin ducks

Thanks WizardWaterfowl,
All 3 are WH you reckon? I was told the drake was a Welsh Harlequin, the dark duck was a Mallard, and believe it or not, the white one, which I think is classed as a Silver WH, I was told she was a Mallard/Muscovy X. The woman was selling the white one for her daughter and I'd say she didn't really know what she was.
All the searching I've done for them I've come up with WH for the 3 of them to, so once again Thanks for comfirming it for me, I'm happy with that.

Sorry, but I'm fairly sure none of them are Welsh Harlequin. I think you have a lovely trio of mixed breed ducks.

I think the darker duck has some mallard in her, especially with the eye stripes and the orange legs.

The drake, if he was a true WH would not have a green sheen (it would be brown), he would have a dark beak and obvious lacing on his chest. He wouldn't have a blue speculum (or wing bars) rather brown.

True, nice quality WH are very rare in Australia and very hard to get. There are a lot of ducks being called Welsh Harlequin which doesn't help either.

The bird in this photo is not the best example but gives an idea of the brown diluation you see in the females.
http://paforumphotogallery.com/displayi ... p?pid=4607

Either way, I'm sure you're trio will bring you lots of happiness and beautiful eggs!

Well! Well! That adds to the confusion, but with what you say Roova, it conflicts with what's on this site
http://holderreadfarm.com/photogallery/ ... h_page.htm
I think I'll just settle on the fact their Ducks

My info is based on the Australian standards though, the birds bred by Holderead are overseas birds so shouldn't really be compared to here. One thing to note is if a bird is bred toward the standard or is of the same breed there should be a uniformity between each sex. You generally don't find females or males looking very different to each other (when compared to the same sex).

With Welsh Harlequin its the gold phased noted in the Australian standard so they have the bronze hue and shouldn't have the blue wing speculum. Welsh Harlequin are classified as a critical rare breed by the rare breeds trust of Australia - http://www.rbta.org/PoultryList.htm, they really are not easy to find. I was on a waiting list for 18 months for my first WH pair. It took a lot of phone calls and patience to find someone who had the real deal.

This is a summary of the Australian standard for WH. It's something to aim for when breeding purebred ducks otherwise we would end up calling our end products whatever we felt like

DRAKE:
Head an upper neck overlaid with bronze sheen to within about 2.5cm of shoulder.
White ring: Completely encircles the neck. The ring is of sharp definition.
Breast, neck base, nape and shoulder rich red/brown/mahogony finely laced with white. Colour finishing sharply across the line of the wing fronts and not washing down into the body colour (which is creamy white in belly flank and stern).
Wing scapulas and tertiaries: are as the breast colour, laced and with creamy-white.
Speculum: is bronze bordered by lines of black and white.
Bill: Olive-green without any trace of blue, with a black bean.
Eyes: Dark brown
Legs: Bright orange.

DUCK:
Head and upper neck honey/fawn with brown graining on crown.
Shoulders. breast, belly, flank and stern: fading thorough fawn to creamy white.
Back and wings: a misture of fawn, red/brown and cream producing a tortoishell effect with well defined lacing on the tertials.
Wing bars: Bronze
Primaries: Brown edged with white
Bill: Gun metal/slate grey
Eyes: Dark Brown
Legs: Dark Brown

SERIOUS DEFECTS:
Blue wing bars. Lack of neck ring in drake. Blue bill on drake. Yellow bill on duck. Lack of feather markings on rump. Oversize.

As they are a sport/decended from the Khaki Campbell they should have the same shape and stance of a Campbell.

I hope you don't think Im just trying to prove you wrong, but I think this information is important if you don't wish to perpetuate ducks being sold as WH when they aren't. I hope this is of some assistance for you, your ducks are beautiful either way, and Im sure they'll bring you much pleasure!

Thanks a million Roova,
No I don't feel your trying to prove me wrong, Thank you for input, very much appreciated.
I'm trying to find out what breed my ducks are, because as you say, I don't want to be selling any I breed as WH when in fact their not. I've done quite a bit of searching on the net since I got them and seemed to find something different every time I looked.
SO! Your pretty sure their just x bred ducks?, and yes, they look good and I certainly do enjoy the eggs.
I've also got 2 Khaki Campbell ducks laying at the moment to.
The lighter coloured duck of mine has laid half a dozen eggs or so since I've had her and they have only weighed about 45g, which seems quite small for a duck egg.
She also mated with a Campbell drake I had, but none of her eggs were fertile.

Once again, Thanks for your help Roova.

I call them "farm harlequins" they are a big dash of harlequin and a pinch of a little bit of this and a little bit of that

Very nice all the same

Thanks 2_drakes, I'll go with that, maybe even Farmequins?