Hermaphro-Duck

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I'm pretty new to the whole hunting thing (some of you may of read my post about my first Moose Hunt), but I was out Duck hunting with some buddies. I ended up shooting a Hermaphro-Duck.

Had the dark head and body colouring of a Mallard Drake, but the chest colouring of a Mallard Hen. Anyone else run into this before?
 
Mallards go through a change in plumage over the summer. The Drakes will go through what is reffered to as eclipse plumage that looks like a hen. What you shot was most likely a drake that was transitioning from eclipse to fall plumage. It is the same as seeing a rabbit in the spring that is white and brown. A hermaphroduck is a genetic possibility but the odds are exteemly low.
 
If it helps for the timing of it, I think someone forgot to send this duck a memo.

Season closes a week from today when I found the duck. Isn't this a little late for the Duck to still be changing it's plumage ?
 
Absolutely normal for a few mallard drakes to change slowly, usually very late hatched ones. FWIW, I have almost never shot a fully "changed" shoveller, teal, or pintail, the drakes are nearly always partially in eclipse plumage here, right up to migration time.
For the first half of the season in Sask, NONE of the ducks are in full breeding plumage.
 
Buddy that's big into duck hunting that was with me said it was just a really old duck (pretty good size to it) that was starting to turn into a female. Something about how when old men start to drop in testosterone they grow breasts, same thing with ducks only their colouring changes to look more like the hen.

I just didn't want to take his work for it. The guys I hunt and fish with really like to F^*k with me about stuff like this.
 
Advance animals don't morph into anther gender unless they go for a nip tuck operation.

Then again they'd just be a man with girly bits. Kind of like a big scoop on the hood of a yugo. All show no performance.
 
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