more ducks

My brother-in-law has a coop full of bantam hens and he thought it would be fun to have some ducks, too. Two ended up being males and they didn't like each other much. (We had that problem with our first set of Mallards and had to give away one of the males to a neighbor.) He gave us one of the males along with two females, so we now have some Khaki Campbells. They are larger than described by breeders, so are not likely a "pure" breed, but are pretty and have blended into our flock quite nicely...all 21 of them, now!




We have decided that we don't like the Blue Swedish ducks that much (except for the black crested one), so will probably slaughter them all in the fall rather than keeping the best to breed. The Chocolate Runners are my favorite (they were the brown ducklings with black bills - 3 extras thrown in for free)and my husband likes the little male and female Mallards that we hatched the best. The BIG Mallard (which may be part, if not all, Rouen) that we hatched is almost full grown and is the biggest duck in the flock. The female mallard, by contrast, is our smallest. Here she is near an assortment of Blue Swedes:



This is my favorite (crested) Swede near the Chocolate Runners:


Here is "Big Boy" next to the mallard drake: