Q-Muscovy Breeding Color Genetics

[Big Dreamer]

Ok, so i have 4 adult muscovies of laying age. I have 1 male balck and white barred/pied, 1 female black and white barred/pied, 1 blue and white (Maybe barred) pied female, and 1 brown and white pied female. This last spring my 2 black and white ones had babies. 1 female had 5 (sadly attacked and killed) and the other 6, so i have 11 barred babies running around! For next spring when breeding season comes around, i wanted to know what colors i would get out of my flock. Since i only have 1 male some are bound to look like him, if i mate him wiht the blue pied what will the resulting babies look like. If i mate him and the brown one what would the babies look like? Im also thinking of having my Welsh Halrequin Male mate the female Muscovies to get some mules, just to see what they would look like!

 

[ian4379]

hi, here goes on some colour theory.

black x black = black
black x blue = 50% black %50 blue
black drake x chocolate = black
black(carrying chocolate)drake x chocolate = %50 black 50% chocolate.

obviously you'll get different amounts of barred and colour/white with the patterns.

 

[AquaEyes]

Try playing on this link.

 

[bossynbella]

Quote:
Does this depend on what else they carry in there background? We have a blue drake and a Black pied duck there first hatch of eight where one black ,one black pied, three blue and three silver. The second clutch she has six that are still alive. I think that perhaps the first two's dad might be the anacona drake as they are three times bigger then the other four and are fully feathered out. On of them is black pied the other is blue pied, the three muscovy looking ones are 1 blue, 1 black and 1 silver.

I just got two chocolate girls (one is pied) what will I get crossing them with a blue drake?

 

[AquaEyes]

Quote:
Does this depend on what else they carry in there background? We have a blue drake and a Black pied duck there first hatch of eight where one black ,one black pied, three blue and three silver. The second clutch she has six that are still alive. I think that perhaps the first two's dad might be the anacona drake as they are three times bigger then the other four and are fully feathered out. On of them is black pied the other is blue pied, the three muscovy looking ones are 1 blue, 1 black and 1 silver.

I just got two chocolate girls (one is pied) what will I get crossing them with a blue drake?

It's true, you need to know what the parents carry but don't show to be sure of predicting the offspring, but based on what you told me (Blue male X Chocolate Female, and Blue Male X Chocolate Pied female), you'll get blues and blacks (equally male and female) from the Chocolate female (and males will be split to Chocolate, since it's sex-linked). Your "Chocolate Pied" female is a bit different, because apparently there are two genotypes that result in a "pied" Muscovy. One way is to be split to White (White is an incomplete dominant mutation...two copies of the gene gives white, but having only one makes the bird have white patches). The other is to be homozygous for Pied, which leaves the bird with a clear symmetrical pattern of white patches. This is just based on pictures I found on the net, so if breeders here are familiar with the genes in Muscovies, they will correct me if I'm wrong.

Here is how I got the results:

Blue male X Chocolate female

Blue male X Chocolate Pied female

Blue male X Chocolate split White female

Click on the blue highlighted text to go to the genetic calculator. When you see the results, feel free to hit RESET and try it out for other crosses. There isn't a picture for every combination, but it gives a good idea of what to expect.

ETA -- Are you sure you got a silver from the Blue male X Black Pied female? The Blue gene in Muscovies works like the Blue gene in chickens -- one copy on a Black base gives Blue, and two copies on a Black base gives Silver (the equivalent of "Splash" in chickens). In order to get a Silver, both parents would have to have the Blue gene. So I'm thinking either that you have a Blue Pied female, or perhaps what you're calling "Silver" is really Lavender, which is lighter than Blue but darker than Silver. If you got Lavender, it would mean that both parents would be split to Lavender. Otherwise, I'm not sure how a Silver duckling could happen.

Also look here and here for more explanations and pictures.

 

[ian4379]

agreed with aquaeyes on the silvers, you cant get silvers from black into blue. this is why i like mussie genetics, once you learn it you get addicted! the calculator is a good guide but in reality it takes a while to find out what genes your birds are carrying, but again thats the fun of it.

 

[AquaEyes]

Now that I think of it, there could also be the possibility that the male is split to Chocolate, which would mean he could have a daughter with one copy of Blue and one copy of Chocolate (females can't have two copies of Chocolate -- it's sex-linked). If that's the case, you'd get a bird that's lighter than a Blue, with some brownish tones, but darker than a Silver. If you could post pics of the birds it would help tremendously.

 

[Wulfandwyn]

The calculator is fun. It is too bad they don't have more photos for the color combos. My three muscovys are pied. One girl is definitely black and white pied. The other girl is maybe chocolate or lavender. and my boy is mostly white with maybe silver on the tips of some of his feathers and on his shoulder blades. I just got them for eggs but since I discovered I have a boy I have duck fever.

end of July

end of August

early September

 

[Big Dreamer]

This was before i got them..not my setup

And the black muscovies, i only have a male and female now out of these 4

 

[AquaEyes]

Your blacks look to be White-Headed Blacks, probably split to White (explaining the random white feathers). In the second pic, I think you have a White-Headed Chocolate Barred that is either Pied, split to White, or both. In the first pic, the one in front looks like a White-Headed Blue-Chocolate (sometimes called Blue-Fawn) split to White. I'm guessing that you bought only the birds in the center of the pics. Otherwise, I think the two in the background of pic #1 are either White or Silver or Silver-Chocolate (whatever that name is), but I can't tell for sure. Hopefully, some others can chime in and correct and amend my guesses.

I'm wondering if the eggs you hatched could have been fertilized by drakes you didn't buy. How long was it between laying and their exposure to the others in the pics?

We'll try to figure it out together.