I'm not repeating photos :). A few weeks ago, I posted a shot entitled "Young Drake." That drake's bill was green. This young drake's bill is orange. I wonder why they have different colored bills? Anyway, this is the last shot of the group of young mallards I encountered at Green Lake a few weeks ago. Thanks for stopping by.
Nice detail and colours in your shot. I had a quick look on the internet to see if there was an answer to your question and this came up. It still leaves the question partly unanswered but may help!
Looking at the bill
Quite often ducklings of all one breed will have different coloured bills. Typically this is a good means of determining gender as the females usually have dark brown bills and the males often have either green or orange bills. This is not entirely fool-proof of course, as some ducks, the White Pekin, for example, possess orange bills in both genders. In most other breeds you will be able to determine male or female by the colour of the duckling’s bill. Most duck farmers prefer to get more females than males, as the drakes tend to fight if there are too many of them.
@lyndamcg Thank you, Lynda. Great answer. Another way to determine gender, is by the feather colors...female plain brown, male more colorful with the blue wing feathers. I don't know if that is foolproof either :).
Looking at the bill
Quite often ducklings of all one breed will have different coloured bills. Typically this is a good means of determining gender as the females usually have dark brown bills and the males often have either green or orange bills. This is not entirely fool-proof of course, as some ducks, the White Pekin, for example, possess orange bills in both genders. In most other breeds you will be able to determine male or female by the colour of the duckling’s bill. Most duck farmers prefer to get more females than males, as the drakes tend to fight if there are too many of them.
ducks are such great subjects.
fav