Welsh Harlequin Ducks - Quiet? HA

[dishrag]

My Welsh Harlequin ducks from Metzer farms are very calm and quiet. I have one that is sort of shy, but the others are friendly and eat out of my hand and greet me with cute little quiet squeaky sounds... I can't explain it, but I love the sound! They are wonderful duckies.

Do you have other duck breeds to compare them to? I'm interested myself in a female WH from Metzer. I know a few Cayugas from Metzer which are pretty calm and very quiet, and I know one Buff who is louder and also pretty calm, but also more alert and--it seems--intelligent than Cayugas.

If you or anyone else can compare-and-contrast different breeds from Metzer, that would be awesome. (Our young ducks have been great so far and laid daily last winter, but this winter are not laying at all...so thinking about getting another one!)

 

[Smurfbrew]

I got two Welshies and one fawn and white runner from Metzer in August. The runner talks non-stop, but it's not loud quacking, more like constant soft honks, sort of like Beaker from the Muppets. The only time she is quiet is when her head goes under water, but that's only because we can't hear her, I bet she's still quacking under there!

She will do a really loud quack once in a while when startled though.

The Welshies, really like to belt it out first thing in the morning when we let them out of their house, or in the afternoons when we come home from work, but otherwise they are fairly low key. Except when the runner riles them up of course, which is fairly often. I would say their loud quacks are louder than the runner's, but usually only one duck at a time gives the loud greeting, so at least they aren't all quacking at once.

 

[dishrag]

Haha, yeah our Buff "talks" most of the time, but I guess not that much! I bet your runner is really goofy and fun, I wish I could get one, but we need to keep our our Buff calm since our neighbors are so close. Sounds like a WH from Metzer might work, thanks!

Smurf, if your young ones haven't started laying yet, I would be very curious to hear whether they get calmer and/or quieter once they start laying.

 

[Smurfbrew]

Dishrag, I'm curious too. They should start laying soon, maybe in just a few weeks!

 

[redrobynlane]

Hi All!
I wanted to tell you, my WH were SOOOOOO LOOOUUUUUUDDD!! I had a group of 6 WH and 4 rouen and the group of them were all loud! It was insane! It never occurred to me that "calm duck" doesn't mean "quiet duck". I just had to rehome them all because of the noise. And, to be clear, what I mean by noise isn't that cute little duck noise while they forage around or are let out first thing. I mean this OBNOXIOUS honking competition they were having 10 times a day. they where honking screaming because they wanted to be loud, because i walked by, when they heard me talking, when a dog barked, when people jogged by, when the wind blew, if their water wasn't perfectly fresh, EVERYTHING made them loud. So, FYI, if you're in a neighborhood and you want your neighbors to like you, don't get welsh. even free eggs can't make someone with a baby like you if you have welsh harlequin. oh! and I got them from METZER. Don't get me wrong, they were BEAUTIFUL and funny and over all "calm" but not quiet at all, and I found them to not be as hardy as others. We had a total of 12 and 2 died - both welsh. From different shipments on different hatch dates.

I'm sure on a farm or if you have some land they're great, but if you live in a residential area I'd not recommend them!

 

[dishrag]

That's interesting! My two ducks got kind of loud during their second winter (the first no-eggs winter), so I can no longer claim that they're quieter than chickens. But once they started laying again, they quieted down. My buff still gets agitated sometimes, but it's not a big deal.

10 ducks in a residential neighborhood sounds slightly insane. I think 3 females would be my maximum, unless they're muscovies.

It's alarming that two of yours died. How old were they when it happened? Do you have any idea of the cause?

 

[redrobynlane]

They were only day old. . So it wasn't too crazy. When i say "residential" I just mean we have neighbors but we still have plenty of land. The welsh were insane loud.

 

[duck-horselover]

maybe they are having a quacking contest. whoever quacks the loudest gets the most treats!!

LOL