AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

Hello,
I have just moved from the city to the country and a few weeks ago got my first three ducks. Lol
Problem is........ I am at a loss as to how to identify if one is a boy or girl.
I am hoping if I post a pic of him.her someone may be able to help me.
Ok...... So why am I so desperate to find out..... well one of the females is laying and sitting on her nest..... is this just an instinct? Also can anyone helpme with what breed/breeds he/she is?
Thanks in advance Sonia.

The bottom picture is a welsh harlequin duck, the first picture hard to tell but is the head shot in the second picture the head of the duck in the first picture?

Male and female ducks quack differently, the female will be loud and the male will have a raspy quiet almost non existant quack

Thankyou Very Much! The pics are of the same duck who is in question. This duck is almost twice the size of the ones pictured in below. I think these two are girls. The lighter one is the one sitting one the eggs. Would love to know what breed these two are as well.
Ok so with the quacking. The first duck picture I posted will not shut up when I approach with the fresh tomatoes and vegies so I haven't been able to hear the other two. Any advice on any other way to tell the sex of it would be so helpful as I really want to give them all a name. LOL!
Thanks for answering my post I am really grateful.
Sonia

Gorgeous healthy looking ducks but I would say they are crossbreds. I'm afraid they aren't Welsh Harlequins although the top one has similarish colouring. (Amongst other things they don't have eye stripes and neck rings). They could also be be brother and sister if you got them together and they are all the same age.

I also think if one duck is drowing out the rest volume wise, you might have one female and two males. Believe me, the ladies can make themselves heard!

Another way to tell sex when they get a little older (although voice gives it away a lot earlier than this) is the males will start to get a curled tail feather.

If you do plan on breeding from them, or running the males and females together, you should probably consider rehoming any excess males and consider getting some extra females. The males can be quite hard on their females and its best to have 3 or more females for one male. Then if one or two go broody the male still has one or two with him. You definitely don't want to keep two males to one female.

They look in nice condition and Im sure they'll bring you lots of pleasure and hopefully also lots of eggs. Yum yum!

Hi Again,

Thanks so much for your replys. Well whatever kind my ducks are I just love them.
They are so interesting to watch. I know that the smaller speckled duck is a girl because she now has laid 6 eggs in a row. The first three I took off her because i wasn't sure if she was nesting but left the ones after that because she had started to sit on them and hissed at me when I went into the shed for a peek. I have marked each egg with a pencil with the date. So I am thinking the dark brown duck is the drake...... he would never be able to get at the first one as she or he is twice his size. LOL! How long should I let her keep her eggs for and how will I know she wants them to hatch. So I guess what I am trying to say is that she does get up and has a wander around but also sits in her nest. So how do I know if their are baby ducks coming.
Thanks again
Sonia

Are you sure you have a male in your trio before you let your duck incubate her eggs? If they aren't fertile you could have rotting exploding eggs after 28 days of being incubated. Have you seen them mating as yet? When you give them fresh water in their swimming tub they get excited and this is often when you see signs of who is male and who is female.

The reason I ask is they all look a bit femaley to me. (Although the middle bird does have a few male characteristics). The males tend to have yellow/greenish bills and sometimes bright orange legs. Some breeds can also get a dark chest. They all look feathered up enough that any curled tail feathers would be evident. I have a drake here at the moment who's tail feather became apparent around 16 weeks and yours look at least as old as him. Do you know how old they are? Are you able to speak to the person you bought them from and also make sure none of them are crossed with muscovies (which will make them infertile)?

Regarding letting your girl sit on eggs - assuming you have a male and he is mating with the female you don't really want them sitting on the first few eggs they lay because they are generally small in size and often oddly shaped. Once they start becoming regular in size and shape keep these ones for incubating. Try to keep the nest area as clean as you can because wiping poo and dirt off eggs is not really recommended, as it can force bacteria into the egg with the shell being so porous.

Don't store the eggs in the fridge but somewhere coolish (the pantry?) and if you keep them in an egg container make sure you put them pointy end down and tip/slant the egg container to change postion a couple of times a day so the egg contents are forced to move and not stick to the shell.

You'll know when your girls go broody because they'll stay on the nest and won't be happy at all if you come near. They generally come off once or twice through the day for food and water and maybe a quick swim. They enjoy building large nests out of straw/hay etc so giving them this environment to nest in will help. Over the course of sitting on the eggs (28 days for Mallards and 35 days for Muscovies) they'll pull out feathers to line the nest with. Eventually you might barely see them in there!

Its not a great idea to leave your broody duck where other ducks might access the nest as if the others continue laying in there you'll have eggs at different stages of incubation. After the first couple of ducklings hatch, Mum is generally ready to leave the nest about 24 hours later. She'll often walk away from unhatched eggs at this time so you want to make sure all the eggs start and finish at the same time. If you absolutely can't keep her separated then it's a good idea to mark her eggs so when she's off the nest you can remove any unmarked eggs daily or as often as you can. The longer you leave them in there the more chance of a duckling starting to grow!

Once hatch occurs it's a good idea to keep mum and ducklings separated not only so the babies can be fed starter and then grower feed, but so the other adults don't injure or kill them.

Hi Sonia,
Roova has given you some good advice and I tend to agree with him, that you may have 3 females.
All are carrying low in the abdomain, all are dark beaked and none have curly tail feather or appear to have feather damage to thier head and necks as would be expected if they are laying, a male is present and mating them..
If all have loud quacking voices, then they are all female, the male has a different voice, where the females will quack loudly he will be seen to be much quieter and the call most definitely nothing like a female.

Hello again

I can't thank you enough for all of your knowledge and help.
I have been observing the ducks for a couple of days and have noticed that the female who is sitting on the nest gets in the tub every day and the big one sometimes gets on top of her and then hops off. Then the big one and the brown one both seem to look as though they are cleaning her. She has also been laying every day and she has now plucked alot of her small feathers out and lined her nest. This morning she had the eggs in one nest then in the afternoon she had shifted them to another nesting box closer to the back of the shed. Is this normal behaviour? I have bought some wood shavings to line all of the boxes with apparently the feed shop does not sell straw anymore. Is it possible that when the ducks were purchased (my brother in law bought them for my nephews but after one week got bored with them) that the man who sold the ducks to my brother in law plucked this curled feather out? The big one has a olive green look to its beak when it doesn't have it in the mud. LOL
Any thoughts on my thoughts are most welcome.
Thanks again in advance.
Sonia