# Sexing Rouen ducks.



## ladytoysdream (Dec 13, 2008)

I have a group of ducks at just over 8 weeks old and am not strong on the sexing.
I can tell the khakis okay but the Rouens are confusing me.
I will see if I can get better pictures after the battery in my camera gets charged.


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## Guest (Jun 29, 2017)

Will this help?


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## ladytoysdream (Dec 13, 2008)

Thanks. I will have to get a set of earphones or speakers, because I don't have that on my computer.

I did study on the cousin's ducks yesterday. I know what the adults look like. 
It's this teenage stage that is tripping me up. Some are bigger than others and look more male.
I want to sell off a few and I need to be able to sex them. I did sell what I thought was 2 females
to a friend and she is telling me, she thinks she got one of each sex. Her original request was
1 male, 2 female. But because she keeps them with her chickens, I talked her out of the male.
She came here and picked them out herself and even caught the ones she wanted.
I guess I just play the waiting game and wait for their heads to go green on the males.


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## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

The drakes will develop a curl at the base of their tail before their heads turn green. Plus you should be able to tell from their voices pretty soon. Yours might be too young, but the beak of the drake is usually lighter than the hens, but that develops over time.


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## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

I find the voice is my first clue - if it makes the quack, or deep "onk" kind of sound, its female. Usually about 4 - 5 weeks, if you pick up a duck, she'll quack in panic. Otherwise, I can hear them when they eat and are happy making "ack ack" sounds, though its hard to pick them out from the crowd at that age! I get about 95% by voice. To vent sex, they must be day olds, after that you can hurt them, btw. I usually sell teenagers after I pick out the ones I am sure are the sex I want by voice and tell people they are straight run, they are on their own! If you sex them and sell them, people tend to buy mostly females... that's ok though if you want to butcher the boys. At this time I'm just doing eggs and don't want many drakes at all. Some ducks are slower to quack though and I am likely to sell them as drakes. No problem if I have plenty that I am sure of!


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## ladytoysdream (Dec 13, 2008)

Thank you for the responses. Appreciate it.
I did sell a pair of Rouens yesterday. They went into a huddle and I had to pick up the ones
I wanted and voice sex them. So I still have 6 Rouens left. I want to keep 2 females to add
to my adult group. So I will need to catch them and do a sex count before I do another sale.
So if I have 4 males left, and 2 females, I will only sell the males.
The khakis are all females left in this group. So that is easy.
I have some black Cayuga eggs in the incubator now. Another learning experience for me


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## ladytoysdream (Dec 13, 2008)

My son was here yesterday and I got him to help me sex these ducks.
I had s couple coming to buy a pair and I had to make sure what I was selling them.
So out of the 10 group of Rouens, 7 males , 3 females. I have now sold 3 pairs
so I have 4 males left to sell. The khakis still left, I have 5 males and 2 females.
I have sole 2 females and 1 male already out of this group. I will be keeping the
2 remaining females to join my 3 adult current females. We had to voice sex them.


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