Mom’s ducks are growing rapidly.
As their adult plumage is starting to come in, I have begun to wonder if these actually are wild mallard/Indian runner crosses.
The woman who bred them also has khaki Campbell ducks, which are like wild mallards, only with tan coloring.
They don’t walk upright at all.
They are unusually tame with people, but they have enough survival instincts to avoid all the predators we have around here. (Including a golden retriever, which is about the only dog around here, wild or domestic, that is brave enough to chase them in the water).
I know my wild duck species very well, but I am quite new to domestic mallard breeds.
If someone knows what a wild mallard/khaki Campbell cross looks like. could you tell me if that is what these ducks are?
I don’t know a lot about ducks, but Khaki Campbells are supposed to be very prolific egg-layers, even more so than chickens. Messybeast.com has a few photos of wild mallard x domestic ducks of various kinds.
The one with the white ring around “his” neck looks a lot like a black duck, save for that white marking. There is huge debate about whether to classify the black duck as its own species or not.
I used to raise all breeds of ducks, including muscovy. If the woman these came from owned Khaki Campbells as well as wild (type) mallards, I would guess these guys are a cross between the two. Their color is “off” for wild mallards, and the ring around the neck of that male is way too wide.
I’ve had those fake Muscovites from South America. They are an entirely different animal, perching in trees and having far less dense down.
Muscovy ducks are like nastly little dinosaurs. These are like golden retriever ducks.
When I wrote “all” breeds of ducks, I should have written “several”.
Love those ducks and geese, although Canadian Geese are considered a nuisance in Greater Toronto Area.
I like female muscovy ducks, but the males are too large and always get scruffy looking no matter how clean you try to keep them. And they fight each other viciously. I used to make some interesting crosses between muscovy hens and males from breeds derived from the mallard. I had some hybrid ducks that looked like big female wood ducks that could fly so well they would perch on the peak of my house and barn roof. The main problem with keeping muscovy ducks in Vermont is that their feet freeze. I don’t believe i ever had any problems along those lines with the hybrids.
Like I said, if the woman you got your ducklings from kept both Khaki Campbells and wild (type) mallards, that is probably what your ducks are. Right now they look pretty much like common barnyard ducks derived from the Rouen bred with wild mallards and similar ducks, that most people call “mallards’, but they’re really not (though for all intents and purposes, all domestic ducks except the muscovy are actually mallards in the same way that all dogs are actually wolves; its a complete parallel of domestication).
The mallard/muscovy hybrid is often raised as a meat duck.
I love to bake with duck eggs. Best cakes & rolls ever!
I like Muscovy duck eggs scrambled.
Did the woman you got the ducklings from have any ‘Blue’ ducks? They could have been blue Indian runners, or some of the other “Blue” breeds (I once raised Blue Cayuga; I liked them because they were all blue, actually a slate gray, with none of the white “bibs” seen in other blue breeds). The ducklings in your photos have a blue hue lingering under their normal brown “mallard” coloring. But from what I can tell, none of them have any of the upright stance of the Indian runner, nor do they have any of the downward sloping bill common to that breed, so I think its doubtful they are mallard/Indian runner crosses. But that ‘Blue’ color must have come from somewhere, and its not “usually” seen in mallards, though I’m sure someone has some strain of ‘Blue’ mallards out there.