I've had mallards for a while now but my most extravagant one is my little dusk rose. She is a pure black mallard but with age she's getting a little bit of white on her chest . She's a nice duck to have, looks beautiful on the pond and always seems to run the flock. Since she is a free ranging duck she hides her nests from predators well at night just a pain to have to go find the eggs when she wont lay in the coop. She hatches some babies ever year but they never make it despite all my efforts to take the babies from her its kinda hard since she worked so hard to hatch them . I've hatched one egg from her but it didn't live very long died within the same day of hatch , for reason is rather not say .
my little Dusk Rose ( dusky )
Her baby
The same year after an unsuccessful hatch from her I went to collect some more eggs from one of our mallards nest . I collected 6 , 4 where fertile but these 4 just so happened to be from her. Both offspring were the normal grey pattern which I was kind of sad about at first but I still love them and I was happy that I did get some successful hatches from dusky. They are very good birds and just a pleasure to have around. If you get this duck breed you will not be disappointed.
delta and dawn all grown up
Update: last summer I collected eggs from dusk's nest again and I had 2 babies hatch one is black just like her. Her name is nixie and she is just an extravagant duck full of personality. The second offspring to hatch was a normal grey mallard patterned female, I named spunky, and she is also very lovely she was born with walking problems and her leg never developed properly so she is crippled now but I have done my best to make life as easy for her as possible.
My other mallards also produced one offspring last year his name is Ricky and he gets along great with his cousins nixie and spunky.
Her baby
The same year after an unsuccessful hatch from her I went to collect some more eggs from one of our mallards nest . I collected 6 , 4 where fertile but these 4 just so happened to be from her. Both offspring were the normal grey pattern which I was kind of sad about at first but I still love them and I was happy that I did get some successful hatches from dusky. They are very good birds and just a pleasure to have around. If you get this duck breed you will not be disappointed.
Update: last summer I collected eggs from dusk's nest again and I had 2 babies hatch one is black just like her. Her name is nixie and she is just an extravagant duck full of personality. The second offspring to hatch was a normal grey mallard patterned female, I named spunky, and she is also very lovely she was born with walking problems and her leg never developed properly so she is crippled now but I have done my best to make life as easy for her as possible.
My other mallards also produced one offspring last year his name is Ricky and he gets along great with his cousins nixie and spunky.