# drake or hen?



## justund223 (Aug 28, 2006)

we shot a green head this morning that had all the colorations of a hen except the green head. i though it was just a young drake but after looking it over it had no other feathers of a drake. can anyone help?


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## dfisher (Oct 12, 2007)

Pretty slender. Wonder if it's not a cross between a mallard and a pintail?
Otherwise I'd vote drake.
Good work,
Dan


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## huntingdude16 (Jul 17, 2007)

Just a freak of nature hen, or shemale. Like when doe's on very rare occasions grow antlers.


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## bandman (Feb 13, 2006)

If curious enought; wear some rubber gloves and pulpate the urogenital opening to feel for male or female sex organs. Chances are it's male or a female that had an extra chromosome; therefore the difference in plumage. If you feel both organs you got yourself a hermaphrodite, but chances are it's either a male or female with chromosomal condition. My guess is that it is a hen w/ the above.

Nice work on great looking specimen!


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## Hockeyhunter99 (Oct 11, 2007)

i can't get the picture up on my computer. what format did you use for that?


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## wyogoose (Feb 11, 2006)

Id say that either way it is a definate wall hanger!!


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## slipstream (Dec 29, 2006)

The latest issue of DU magazine has an article on plumage. In the article it notes that the estrogen in female ducks blocks the more colorful plumage. The article to goes on to state that if a female duck has damaged ovaries from a bb or something else, that they can display some male plumage. That scenario may have played out with this duck. Very interesting bird!


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## Rick Acker (Sep 26, 2002)

I forget the correct scientific term for it, but it is an older hen Mallard that has stopped producing estrogen and has developed male charateristics. (same thing happened to my ex wife!  ) Rare, but not unheard of. We see a few of them in the taxidermy world. I would get it mounted!


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## shiawassee_kid (Oct 28, 2005)

shot one this morning that was very similar, when i get pic's off camera i'll post it. kind of a shemale.


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## glatz (Mar 27, 2004)

mount it, thats awesome!


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## huntingtim08 (Sep 17, 2004)

That is an odd duck and it definetly would somehow be on my wall


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## strand (Sep 29, 2004)

Slipstream nailed it! It's basically an estrogen deficiency in the female. It only occurs in the female (i.e. males don't have excess estrogen to look like hens). I recently read a paper in which this was tested in captive reared birds by administering anti-hormonal drugs. Very cool bird to be taken out of the wild.


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## mshutt (Apr 21, 2007)

Nice shot UniversityWaterfowler


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## duckslayer (Oct 30, 2003)

Our group shot one that looks identical on Sunday morning.


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## mallardrocker (Nov 29, 2006)

is that equivalent to a chick with a stache?


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## itchy (Aug 15, 2006)

Would the estrogen thing also affect the bill, it doesn't look like it has the bill of a hen?


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## shiawassee_kid (Oct 28, 2005)




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## shiawassee_kid (Oct 28, 2005)

bandman said:


> That instance is A LOT more common, but it's obviously usually at the beginning of the year. (Young drake)


shot in november? I mean we've shot juvie drakes alot but they were no where close to this brown....this bird has no black on the tail or nothing...this is a shemale or something. If this is a juvie, he had to hatch in september.


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## bandman (Feb 13, 2006)

What the heck? I meant to edit that post and accidentally deleted it. Yea it looks like a some young drakes shot on opening weekend and it could be he was hatched late and still in his eclipse plumage. (Second picture gives it away).I know we've had a bunch in our hands that would fit him to a T on opening weekends.

If he's not a late bloomer; it's like something stunted his conversion.


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## shiawassee_kid (Oct 28, 2005)

bandman said:


> If he's not a late bloomer, it's like something stunted his conversion.


kinda what we were thinking. So how do you count it? hen or drake?


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## bandman (Feb 13, 2006)

Most definitely, he's a drake. I could show you quite a few 4X6's with that exact looking bird. We've even had the warden decipher some of them (throw into the appropriate sex pile--drake) with no questions asked. :wink:


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## diver_sniper (Sep 6, 2004)

We got a weirdo today too. Shot it pretty close. Like 10 feet. It came down missing a leg, which we never found. 5 bucks says we finally got a banded bird, but sure enough we shot it right off.


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## scottjes000 (Jan 26, 2007)

thats one mutilated duck! 
you'll be spiting out bbs for a while


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## goosebusters (Jan 12, 2006)

I shot one too the day before Thanksgiving, I thought I'd drag this thread back from the depths to show it.


















Like others have said before, I picked it up and thought how did I shoot the one immature drake in existence in late November. Then my hunting partner pointed it out that it was a tranny and now I think its pretty cool.


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## Tracker21 (Jul 9, 2007)

Nice looking duck. Put it on the wall.


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## chris lillehoff (Jan 9, 2006)

IMO the one Goosebusters shot is just a crappy plumed drake. Same with the one from the standing corn field pic.....yellow bill is a drake.


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## goosebusters (Jan 12, 2006)

Chris, the one in the very first picture has a yellow bill. They all have yellow bills, maybe that's a characteristic. The head is the last thing to change on a greenie, correct? If he had a gray face I would agree with you, but since his head is entirely green, and his body brown, I believe it fits in this category.


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## Kucker (Jan 13, 2007)

We shot a four man limit Saturday and I think 5 or 6 were like that. We thought it was kind of wierd too. Cleaned them all and didn't think anything of it. I'll have to get the pictures from my friends. One of them had some real different plummage that was different.


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## ND_duckman (Feb 17, 2006)

Just do a cloacal exam on the bird to check the plumbing and you will know for sure what sex it is.


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