Welsh Harlequin - Page 8

Next question...  I have a drake that was hatched out on March 28, '09...  He still hasn't gotten all the coloring on his head but the rest of his body if fully colored.  How long does this normally take.??  Or will he never fully color out.???

I'm over my head with this question, not sure if I really understand it, I hope Shavelen or someone with this kind of knowledge will read this.
What I do know about the difference between the gold and silver is that the silver has at least one of the dominant D+, and the gold has to have two d (brown dilution). 
That's true for drakes, it is a sex-linked gene so the gold female will have only one d and the silver female one D+.
The usual genotype given for gold is dd lih lih
And for silver DD lih lih
So if you bred a gold hen with a silver drake the male offspring would be phenotypically silver with a recessive "gold" and the female would be pure silver.  A gold drake with as silver female produces sex linked offspring with the females being gold and the males being silver with the recessive brown dilution gene.
Maybe that addresses your question or maybe you already knew that?

There are numerous genes at work with Welsh Harlequins.  A lot of the original research done on duck colors was all the way back in the early 1900's and some of the original studies were on only a few pairs of birds so there is probably a lot we don't know.

Basically, Welsh Harlequins carry dusky mallard, light phase, and harlequin.  The Gold Welsh Harlequins also carry sex-linked brown dilution.  Dusky and light phase are seemingly not completely recessive which could result I think in several variations in phenotype (not to mention all the unknown genes that may be at work). 

If light phase and dusky are not completely recessive, I don't think there is really a "name" for heterozygous dusky phenotype or light phase.  It becomes very complicated and unfortunately, unless a person completely recreates the breed in order to absolutely know the genetic make-up of their birds- it will probably always be as clear as mud.  I have nine WH that are still feathering and it appears, at least initially, that they are going to have at least three distinctly different plumage colors/patterns.

Other colors in ducks, like Blue, do have names for the heterozygous verses homozygous dilution.

Would you be willing to post photos of the 3 different plumage colors/patterns and explain what you believe they will be.  Such would be of a great help for individuals like myself who have no opportunity to see many of the WH for comparision.

and Thanks for the info...

Thanks Dances with Ducks... I read your post earlier about the key to gene symbols...  that's what got me to wondering about the possiblity of homozygous genes.

That sheds some light on my experiences trying to breed Golds this year.  I had one Gold female, and I bred her and some of her Silver sisters back to their Silver sire (since he had to carry Gold) hoping to increase the frequency of Gold in my flock. 

I got 100% Silvers.

This tells me that at least some of the resulting drakes are carrying a recessive Gold gene--and that getting Golds from phenotypical Silvers is going to be harder than I thought ;-)

Webfoot

It'll happen soon.  So far, only my earliest (March 2) drake has gone completely green.  The rest still have that teenager look.

Webfoot

On that note - do any of you have pics of your "teenager" WH?  I split a Holderread order and now have 3 WH and 2 KC.  I thought I had (using the bill coloring at 2 days old) 1 drake and 2 ducks.  However, all three are getting a lot of black on their heads...is this typical?

CityChicker - I believe they came from the same batch as yours, so that puts them at 6 weeks (6/15 hatch date).  How are yours looking?

Do you all have any pics of this age range?

The WH are much bolder than my KC, and curious.  I do love all my duckies though!

Here are my male and female
at five weeks:


at seven weeks:


at nine weeks:

Thanks Dances with Ducks!  Mine look just like yours did at 5 & 7 weeks - I feel much better.  I didn't realize that the ducks started w/ black on their heads.  Your ducks are beautiful!