Colour breeding - Indian Runner Ducks

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theatlantic88

theatlantic88

In the Brooder
5 Years
Mar 16, 2014
45
1
24
Hi everyone, hoping to find someone to discuss colour breeding in Indian Runner ducks.

If anyone is knowledgeable on the subject I would be more than grateful for any help you can provide.

My goal is to develop some trout colouring. I currently have a mallard strain, whites, fawn and white and pencilled. I am adding some blues and chocolates as well.

Thanks!
 
Hello,

I've been a fan of Indian Runners for some time now, and love playing with the colors. I've got a few color projects I'm working on myself, and would be happy to discus and answer any questions you have.

First of all, get a couple of good books on the subject. I recommend "Raising ducks" by Dave Holderread, and "Colour Breeding in Domestic Ducks" by Mike and Chris Ashton. The latter can be found on Amazon UK.

With the colors you have it will be very difficult to get trout runners, unless you have the trout gene hidden somewhere in one of your other colors. You won't know this unless you hatch and raise their offspring, but with all of the other colors and genes involved, it will be very difficult to tell. If you want trout, I recommend you get a couple of pairs of trouts, and go from there.

So....... I'm excited to find someone else that is interested in breeding for certain colors. It is a lot of fun, and you can come up with some very pretty combinations.
 
Thanks for the reply!

I have been trying to purchase colour breeding of domestic ducks but the book is currently sold out everywhere. I have tried to purchase some trout ducks but I cannot find any in Canada. Holderreads does not readily offer trouts and the health certificates for cross country border crossing are hundreds of dollars.

I have purchase a mallard runner and 2 mallard runner ducks in hopes of creating trout runners but I do not know the inner workings of creating the trout strain that I am after.

I am incubating 23 runners due to be hatched next week and I have given 36 to school classrooms to hatch so if I have a hidden trout strain than hopefully it appears.

What colours are you currently breeding? I would like to produce blue trout and apricot sex linked runners. That's my goal anyways! Haha. I am in ontario canada.
 
Last edited:
The Holderread book has the same information. It's just that the Ashton book has lots of nice, color photographs.

You MAY have a hidden trout gene in your greys, but it would have to be hidden in both your male and at least one of your females in order for it to show up in your first hatch. And that's assuming you had your greys separated from you other colors. If not, you will have some very interesting and pretty colors, but they will be practically impossible to sort out for pairing up later.

Apricot, which is Grey (wild-type mallard) with a double blue dilution, is not sex-linked. Only the brown dilution gene, and the buff dilution genes are sex-linked.

Blue trout is the same as a regular trout, but with one blue dilution gene. The color you are probably looking for is called "Saxony". It is a trout with 2 blue dilution genes.

The colors I have are: trout, blue-trout, and Saxony, as well as some in-between colors for a color-project I'm working on.
 
After looking more at saxony runners I am not sure if my one newly acquired is saxony or a mallard runner duck. I am still leaning towards mallard runner.

If and when, I will post some photos of my ducks and perhaps we can try to pinpoint who is what. Currently I have 3 dozen eggs in classrooms being incubated and my hopes are to see from the random breedings that took place, what strains I may have.

My current incubated eggs are aimed for egg production ducks, but my next round will have the isolated pairings that I wish to develop. I will look up Holderreads book and see if I can have one ordered and shipped before my next round of eggs for incubation are ready.

I still need to wrap my head around the trout gene a little bit more.
 
Feel free to ask questions. I love talking about duck color genetics, and I learned a lot from this website by asking others.... and I still do...

The trout gene is really quite simple: A wild-type duck (typical "mallard pattern"), with two "trout" genes will have the same pattern as the wild-type, but the overall look of the birds will be a bit lighter. There is also a gene called "harlequin", which lightens the colors even more (like in the Welsh Harlequin ducks).

Adding ONE Blue-dilution gene to mallard colored ducks will make blue-fawn. Adding TWO blue-dilution genes will make Apricot.

Adding one blue-dilution gene to a trout-colored duck will make blue trout. Adding two will make Saxony colored birds.

If you have white ducks in your pen it will be very difficult to know what genes are being carried by any of your ducks, since white is a "masking gene", and your ducks could be carriers of just about any genes.

I would love to see some photos of your ducks when you get a chance.
 
Sorry for the delay in responding. I've been a little bit busy. We have hatched 16/23 duckilings and some of the eggs are from a friend so we just had a snowy call duck hatch.

I ordered the holderread book and I am impatiently waiting for it in the mail.

Currently with our hatch from our own fawn and white male and 2 pencilled females and 4 white females we have had two whites and 1 fawn and white hatch. From my friend we have had about 8 whites, 1 chocolate and 3-4 pencillled, give or take.

I will have some mallard runners being born in another 2 weeks or so from a school program. I am really hoping some odd colours show up as I would love to find a trout strain lying somewhere.

I will see if I can upload some photos..
700

700

700
 
a sad start to today.. 6 eggs had not internally pipped.. turned out 2 did not develop fully and the other 4 died at full term internall without pipping.

even more sad was that I helped one hatch earlier, but their internal organs were prolapsed. Unfortunately there was no way to get them back in and the runner had lots of strength, so we made the call to do the most humane thing and I had to put it down. I guess this is the part of hatching that isn't fun.

We ended with 16/23 hatched and healthy. 1 Snowy call snuck in, a chocolate runner and a female silver runner (I think).
 
I now have stock of 50+ holderread runners including trouts. Still up for talking genetics, please send me a PM
 
hi there,

i was hoping i could butt in on this conversation about the trout runners, my daughter and i are planning on breeding our pair of trout runners in march, it seems that we will be limited in any colours we may get, how do we add a blue dilution gene? At the moment we have a single breeding pair of trout runners, but would consider another female for more colour options, thankyou very much for reading this and i appreciate any information you can offer.

catriona and edana
wigtown, scotland.
 

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