Buddy told me he shot a 6 curled mallard the other day and he was all excited racing on his way to the taxi.
Told him nice burd, but there is no such a thing.
The max they will have is 2 if you plug em out of their butt. Sure, you can seperate them and make em look like 4 or 6. But lets stop the 4-6 curl Mith, or lets not, hell i dont care.

Pull a feather out of one's but and stick it in the others. Walla!

I like your style
Walla!

mount it

Interesting. I've seen lots of three and four curlers. I'm gonna have to pluck the next ones to verify.

Do some research (not google) prior to pluck em

Found this post, I think Matt knows what he is talking about...

Amen

Huh. Learn something new every day

Herro..

thats hilarious!

This. A 2 curl mallard has 4 curl feathers. To have a 3 curl mallard would mean 6 curled feathers

I could be wrong, but that's not how I interpret Matt's post. I read it as regardless of the number of feathers per curl (note, its number of feathers per curl), a mallard properly groomed displays 2 curls. Minimum 2 feathers per curl, so if the feathers come apart on both curls, 4 curls could be displayed on a bird with 2 feathers per curl. Six curls could be displayed if each curl has 3 feathers, etc..

You guys are confusing this with the Ole Beaver's farm raised mallards he shoots, not sure he has actually seen a wild mallard but I will assure you to say there are only two curl feathers on a mallard like he originally said in his first post is dead wrong. If the feathers are split you could make out 2,3, 4 or whatever you want to see.
Beaver let the man enjoy his harvest, your wrong anyway.
Enough with pounding the beaver again, lets go second part of the season.

Yep, that's what I meant. (2feathers per true full curl)

First you need to watch this video, hopefully it will soften your heart a little



you reading between the lines. Of course you can have one feather split into 2 curls. But when you pluck em out of their butt you will only have one feather and not 2.

They appear to have two curls, usually, but each curl is made of two interlocking feathers so, in reality, there should be four curl feathers if you count them. Occasionally a feather will not fit properly with its match so there will appear to be extra curls even though the number of feathers is the same.
Once in a blue moon you might find a drake with three complete curls - meaning that there are actually six curled feathers. (I've only seen one of those in almost 37 years, so it isn't common.)
I don't think the number of curls means anything. A mallard drake that's old enough to be moulted out is going to have a full set of curls.
Anything other than four curls (which should fit together to make two) will be due to unusual genetics or to a damaged feather follicle that can't produce a perfectly matching curl.
Or ... pinfeathers.

And what the heck is a wild mallard?

I still think some of you guys don't get it. All drake mallards will display 2 curls when properly grouped, regardless of how many tail feathers they have.

Correct

Meant to say groomed, not grouped.

Lotta heat over green-headed trash ducks

I shot a sprig with 6 pins one time....

Same here. Shot a pinnie with 8 pins and the taxi added 3 peacock feathers to it