Australian Spotted Duck?

[buff goose guy]

from storey's guide to raising ducks - the normal incubation of mallard derived breeds can be anywhere from 26-28 days bantam breeds take a shorter time to hatch and are usually around or on hatch date by day 26.

 

[DuckGal2]

Hi, I have pure Australian Spotted Silverhead ducks from dave holderread. I have babies hatching any day now. I would LOVE to trade for other colors. I am near Salem, OR. message me or reply if interested

The Australian Spotted duck is a bantam duck that comes in 3 color varieties: Greenhead, Bluehead, and Silverhead. They are seasonal layers (they only lay for a couple months in the spring) of small greenish eggs. They are LOUD. A female bantam duck can be louder than a rooster, and they can really get going with their "QUACK QUACK QUACK" during feeding time and whenever something startles them (i.e. - when a car drives by at night). And as far as meat goes, butchering and dressing them would probably be more effort than the 1-2 pound carcass would be worth by the time you raise them up. They're ducks, so they're messy. They will destroy your lawn, and make a muddy mess. 

If you're interested in a good meat/egg bird for an urban setting, I highly recommend Coturnix quail. The males can be somewhat loud, but the sound they make is so much like a wild bird that your neighbors likely won't mind or even notice. The eggs are tiny, but the females lay TONS of them and they're multicolored and speckled. Plus, they're adorable hard-boiled and used as a garnish. I used to slice them in half and put them in my home-made potato salad. You can keep quail in a raised rabbit-type cage with a "poop tray" to catch the droppings, and they're a breeze to clean up after. And they are great little meat birds. They're small, but they breed like rats if you let them - they have HALF the incubation period that ducks do and they grow out quick, so you'll never have a short supply, and you can butcher them in large batches. 

 

[DuckGal2]

I have pure australian spotted silverheads from dave holderread. I have babies hatching any day now and I would LOVE to trade with you. I am near Salem, OR.

I had two hens hatch ducklings so I have two mama ducks raising 15 ducklings together since I took the 4 blueheads away (my silverhead hen seems to have laid eggs in a couple different nests before I penned her with the silverhead drake). I am selling all the greenheads I hatch this year but these ducklings will stay with their mamas to raise and hopefully start a couple new flocks. I am keeping anything that looks bluehead to see how they feather out since I had some ducklings with lighter down feather out as greenheads last year and only one feathered out bluehead. I am wanting to have more colors but I won't be able to keep all the ducklings I raise. At least I can see how they feather and sex them before I decide which ones to sell and which ones to keep.

Does anyone near the Pacific Northwest have purebred show quality Australian Spotted ducks? It would be awesome to find others and create unrelated pairs since I have all my greenheads together without separating the three lines (two drake lines are with the hens while the third greenhead line is separated from the main flock). Last year I got some oversized drake ducklings from someone who hatched eggs from two different people (I only kept one of the three drakes because he was the only one that was bantam sized) so I don't want to make that mistake again. I want to be sure everything originated from Holderreads so I don't get mixes that don't breed true. I need to be sure that my own ducklings will be high quality so I will be raising more this year before I sell them.

I am cutting back on my greenheads to make room for blueheads and silverheads. I am letting more hens hatch and raise their own ducklings this year so the hens and ducklings can create starter flocks with unrelated drakes from the third line. These are such awesome little ducks that I am hoping more people start raising them so they will no longer be rare and endangered.

I had two hens hatch ducklings so I have two mama ducks raising 15 ducklings together since I took the 4 blueheads away (my silverhead hen seems to have laid eggs in a couple different nests before I penned her with the silverhead drake). I am selling all the greenheads I hatch this year but these ducklings will stay with their mamas to raise and hopefully start a couple new flocks. I am keeping anything that looks bluehead to see how they feather out since I had some ducklings with lighter down feather out as greenheads last year and only one feathered out bluehead. I am wanting to have more colors but I won't be able to keep all the ducklings I raise. At least I can see how they feather and sex them before I decide which ones to sell and which ones to keep.

Does anyone near the Pacific Northwest have purebred show quality Australian Spotted ducks? It would be awesome to find others and create unrelated pairs since I have all my greenheads together without separating the three lines (two drake lines are with the hens while the third greenhead line is separated from the main flock). Last year I got some oversized drake ducklings from someone who hatched eggs from two different people (I only kept one of the three drakes because he was the only one that was bantam sized) so I don't want to make that mistake again. I want to be sure everything originated from Holderreads so I don't get mixes that don't breed true. I need to be sure that my own ducklings will be high quality so I will be raising more this year before I sell them.

I am cutting back on my greenheads to make room for blueheads and silverheads. I am letting more hens hatch and raise their own ducklings this year so the hens and ducklings can create starter flocks with unrelated drakes from the third line. These are such awesome little ducks that I am hoping more people start raising them so they will no longer be rare and endangered.

 

[buff goose guy]

try the buy sell and trade thread for maybe more help

 

[Duck Breeder]

The only Aussies I've seen were bantams. I doubt you'd get much meat off of them and I've heard they aren't the best layers. I've found bantam ducks to be just as loud if not louder than large breeds.

My Aussies lay 120 eggs a year.