SwampCollie

What you gotta realize here portable is that the only person who is going to see that duck if you decide to have him mounted is YOU. So if the experience was memorable, and you enjoy the memory, by all means it yours to cherish.

I have a young of the year hen bluebill going on the wall as a dead mount right now because its the first duck my young swamp collie pup brought in. I got a great picture of him holding it, sun in his eyes, wet and happy that will go right along with the mount. Totally meaningless for anyone but me and Dutch, the way it should be.

drgildy

The Swamp Collie is correct. You shot it and if you think it should be put on the wall by all means do so. One reason that the duck was on the thin side may be that it did not have a pan of feed set before it at meal time every day. That may or may not be the reason for it being on the thin side but who cares. It is up to you to decide. I think all waterfowl are very interesting birds and that was why I have raised them for so long. As to the comment that one made that it might be an Indian Runner duck I wonder if he has ever seen a Runner or hybrids of them? The too have been bred from "sports" of the mallard clan. Most domestic ducks have been developed from these "sports" or mutations of the mallard.

portable ladder

I took the duck to the taxidermist, this guy has been doing duck mounts and studying ducks for over 25 years, he said with the duck's speculum colors, the white throat patch and the tail feathers, he thought the duck was a mallard/pintail hybrid.

mallard stalker

When are you getting the mount back?

duramaxnay6

It's definitely not a shoveler or a pintail hybrid. Both pintails and shoveler's have white belliesand there is no sign of the typical mallard light grey or a white pintail or shoveler white belly. The speculum and the bill would also take characteristics of either a mallard, pintail, or shoveler, and it has none. It definitely does have several characteristics of a tame/farm duck. I have seen several mallard/pintail hybrids and this hold none of what you see with them. Still a cool looking duck, just not a hybrid of a mallard and a wild duck. It is pretty common to see ducks that look like that around farms or places where there are tame ducks.

portable ladder

Should get the mount back by late May, I'll post more pics of it then.

portable ladder

Well, I have heard just about everything on this duck.

Other long-time Duck hunters and a taxidermist that have seen it in person, and all of you on the internet that have seen it in pictures. I have come to the conclusion that everyone has an opinion and many of them are different, no one knows for sure and no one ever will know exactly what mixture breed of duck this is. Here are the facts, the duck was taken on public land, onarainy morningby myself. Icalled in the duck,he worked my decoy spread with 2 other mallards, a drake/hen pair for about 3 circles and passes, finally committed, cupped and began to land, I took this one because I saw the unique colorings.

I have looked at hundreds of duck pictures on the internet, all wild species, exoticsand city park domestics, I can't pin a label on this duck for anything. It has many different markings/traits and is hard to say this is an (X) duck, that I think is the greatest part about it, nobody knows for sure.

I think we all agree that it is of Mallard decent.

As for what mixture breed the duck is?

I have heard these responses the most in order of popularity,

1) Mallard / Northern Shoveler
2) Mallard / Pintail
3) Wild Mallard / Domestic Mallard Decent (Barnyard Breeder)
4) Mallard / East Indies Exotic Bred Duck
5) Mallard / Hooded Merganser
6) Old Mallard hen reverting back to male colors

My question to all of you, people are going to see this duck hangingfrom my ceilingand ask, what kind ofmallardis that, whatshould I tell them? I'll just pick one of the above, give my take on it and explain all the other possibilities, it will beagoodconversation piece, not to mention a beautiful bird to look at for years to come.

TEmbry

i agree, who cares if it is mixed with a tame duck. this duck was obviously wild and unique which made it special to you. id mount it for sure. i just shot my first duck yesterday wood duck drake, nothing special but im mounting for sure.

SwampCollie

Not my current girlfriend, but the one before her was blonde, and like a blonde should be, she was dumb as a bag of rocks. We went to pick up a deer head at the taxidermist and he had in his collection a no-kidding shoulder mount of a Triceratops, scaled down to white-tail size. The girlfriend looked over at me and said, I wonder who shot that thing?

I would just let people think that it is whatever they want it to be. I would just look at them and shrug. I never told that girl about novelty taxidermy. I look forward to shooting a baboon in Africa this summer and having it made into a drink table, standing upright with his nose errect, monacle in place,in long-tails coat and tie, holding a drink tray. I am sure the dog will not fancy it, nor will the current girlfriend.

duramaxnay6

Primate mounts always freak me out. I would just mount the baboon with the mouth open like it was attacking and hide it behind corners to scare people. That would be worth the money of stuffing one.