An interesting Duckling

[dumb_cluck]

I vote Mallard.

 

[rollyard]

Ducky, yes, can't help myself I know. These (Runners) aren't what I would call quality, but they became available & were handy & had the extended black I was after, the drake a choc & the duck a black. The choc is so rich....very nice. A little surprised that your Cinnamons/Harlequins aren't more popular as they are such beautiful birds. Bad luck with your Computer & hope you can get that sorted soon, they can be so frustrating.

Dana, thank you for your input as I do appreciate your wealth of knowledge. It is nice to hear anothers views with similar experiences, particularly @ my early learning stage. I am not too sure what I was expecting with the M+/m^d ducklings, maybe not such clearly defined markings, or a little more extension of pigments I guess? A duckling I purchased some time ago had a dirty yellow-ish down when younger & also faint facial markings from memory (maybe just the darker eye-lines) so thought M+ involvement. He went on to feather out pretty much dusky except for no pigment underwing & some claret breaking. No diluters involved, but have thought for sometime that something else was? I will go back & have another look @ that thread on your sports if I can find it as have forgotten much of it now. Going by the above little M+/m^d duckling I fully agree on his similarity with pure M+ downed ducklings. It will be interesting to see what changes take place as he matures. Hope you can get hold of a dark dusky drake to test mate with those hens as results could be interesting. I have three dark dusky (D+/d) drakes here & you would have been welcome to one but a little far to send I'm afraid.

dumb_cluck, thank you for your vote

Cheers

 

[Senna95]

This is interesting. I'm new to breeding for duck colors, my first year in fact, though I've had ducks for years....

I have greys and trouts (Indian Runners), but it is hard to tell the difference between them in the adult females. (the males are somewhat more obvious) Some are very obviously one or the other, but then there are the "tweeners". Dana, you said "Recognizing ducklings that are pure for light phase from those that are dark phase can also be very difficult." To me, the difference was much more obvious when they were just hatched. Does that make Light/dark phase imcompletely dominant? Or am I just seeing individual variations in color and darkness? It seems like the main difference is in the color of their bills ....... the greys have very dark bills while the trouts' are orange, but I know that can change later too. Thank God I banded them!

Then there's the "odd duck". She was supposed to be a trout, but was born completely black, including her feet and bill. Now (at almost 6 months) she appears to be a light-phase dusky (maybe?), but she is white underneath her wings. No eye-stripe, and no irridesent wing speculum.

Wow, the more I learn, the more confused I get!

 

[treldib]

Quote:
The Golden 300 Hybrid Layer is a commercial hybrid that can lay A LOT of eggs. The 3 main "components" are Welsh Harlequin, Khaki Campbell, and Rouen and I have heard that there are up to 14 different breeds that make up the Golden 300's. They are a sex link bird, one of the few sex link duck breeds (you can tell them apart by color as soon as they hatch). The males, are a lot darker in color than the females which are a light brown and gold duckling. The main thing I remember from when my Female Golden 300 was a duckling was those dorsal spots...for some reason she liked to be scratched there

ETA: Found this video of when we picked up our first two ducklings from Metzer Farms (what an awesome place). You can vaguely see the dorsal spots on the Golden 300.

 

[CityChicker]

Quote:
It does seem somewhat typical for the mature m+/m^d drakes to show some amount of claret and sometimes a partial neck ring. I have seen a few people on BYC post pictures of crosses that show that. In the mature hens, it might be harder to identify dusky (at least, I suspect so). I hadn't mentioned it in my thread about the "Blue Fawn" offspring from the sport hens, but we did initially think (and still consider it a possibility) that they may be showing dusky. To refresh your memory, similar colored ducklings hatch in about 1 in 5,000 Mallards and have no dorsal spots and two very thick eye stripes that on some birds are enlarged to the point they almost look like they have solid, dark colored heads. The underwing color on those hens though is white. Anyway, I will do more test crosses with those particular sports next year. I would ideally like to pair one with a wild-type Mallard, one with a dark Dusky, and the other one with a drake of the same sport variety (but, no similar drakes have hatched this year). We had some more eggs set from the sport hens x Pastel Mallard drake and none hatched, so right now I don't have a mate for the Blue Fawn hen, but still plan to set more eggs this Fall.

My big goal for next year is to do more test crosses than ever before and to start banding and taking pictures of all offspring. Each year, I become more focused with what I want to study with the genetics of color. I have really worked hard to find game farms here in the states to work with and keep an eye out for sports. It is just a slow and tedious process and most of them have absolutely no interest in being a part of a project like this. I suspect that a lot of times mutations get missed because they are such a slight difference from wild type. Unfortunately, the ones that are *very* different are typically just culled here in the US (in Mallards anyway). Sad, because so much valuable information, at least for us hobbyists, is lost.

 

[CityChicker]

Quote:
I know the feeling! Is the "odd duck" from some of our eggs? That is interesting. Some of the Mallard sports I was just talking about are similar. They look very dark as ducklings, almost black. As adults they look like very darkly colored wild-type birds, but also show some similarities to Duskies, except they have white under the wings. It may be similar to what you are seeing.

As far as our Trouts and Greys here, my Greys in the Runners are one of the darker strains. The color is more similar to the Grey of the Rouen than that of a US Mallard. The Trouts are quite a bit lighter in color, but I only have a few regular Trouts. I haven't bred enough of them that I can say for sure how much they vary in color, but I imagine they vary quite a lot, as seems to be typical for the similar colors. It is very hard to know what is just the difference between individuals of the same genotype and what is an entirely different genotype. What you are asking about light phase being incompletely dominant though is certainly a thought that has crossed my mind. I think I have mentioned before that I am unsure what source to believe as far as whether dark phase is really completely dominant over light phase and light phase is completely dominant over harlequin phase. My general feeling is that this is probably not the case.

Something has to explain why wild-type birds, as well as light phase and harlequin phase birds, vary so much in depth of color and amount of white. Anyway, I should have a more definite answer in about two years. You have already suggested though the most logical answer.

 

[rollyard]

Yes, I do recall now. I remember thinking it significant; significant in that such a small % were different enough to be noticable. But then I don't know what graduations in colour/pattern existed in the other 4,999 hatchlings? Also recall mention of the potential for variable expression with wild-type M+, & that does make sense when I think of the variation in colour/pattern seen in mallard ducklings. Still, if something new was going to pop up then that is where you would expect to find it with those numbers being hatched? Maybe a pigmentation enhancing/extending variation @ the M or Li loci?

Could md be involved? I remember the fine fellow I purchased my original trio of Saxony from telling me about one of the current seasons Saxony ducklings being a true dusky. It was female & never did show any facial/neck/throat markings or dorsal spots, but I can't recall mention of underwing pigmentation...that would have beem interesting to know. I know he has had the Saxony for many years now & think this was the only dusky he had bred from them? I was interested @ the time because I was on the look-out for a dusky with blue for the Campbell project, but she wasn't one he was parting with @ the time. Breeds originally used in developing his line included Pekin, Rouen, I think he mentioned Appleyard but could have this bit wrong, & of course Buff Orpington for the blue gene. Similar to how originally produced in Germany from memory. Could the dusky he bred just recently be the result of hidden md imported from the Orps or something else? He wasn't sure, but if it was md bred in from the original Orps it had been hiding for quite some time. One of the alternatives I guess is a new but similar for traits gene/M allele? I have no idea.

I do think your intended test x with the wild-type mallard & dark dusky drakes should be very interesting result-wise. The white underwing on your sport hens would suggest M+, but the absence of dorsal spots & heavy facial pigmentation? What a shame you didn't have a drake similar (sport) to use over those females also because it would have been fascinating to see those results too. It does take time & I have wished on more than one occasion that my birds would grow up overnight to speed things up a bit

Doesn't help when your ducklings won't hatch either. PS, if you are lucky enough to come across other interesting potential mutations, do share your hard work, it is appreciated

 

[rollyard]

This is the next hatch, considerable variation in down, some don't have dorsal spots, some very light downed, others much darker, 24 hrs old & bred the same as above duckling (Saxony Drake x Dark Dusky Duck).

 

[treldib]

Man...almost looks like some sex-link gene going on there...so much variation in bill and leg/foot color....

ETA: Thye actually look a lot like Golden 300's...did you accidentally create some?

About 2 minutes and 20 seconds into the video they are shown

 

[CityChicker]

Wow, wow, wow! Can you believe it, Ross? Did I tell you about variable down color? LOL. They are some beauties, aren't they?

First question- Are you sure the hen is pure for Dark Dusky? Are you sure she isn't Li/li? I guess how likely that is would depend on her background. Most Duskies and Khakis here in the US don't carry light phase. I'm not sure if the same applies there.

You got the typical mix of colors that have frustrated me to no end in some of my projects this year. Now you understand why I said next year I want to band and photograph every duckling from some of my test crosses. In theory (if you believe much of what has been written), every duckling should look like a Blue Fawn (similar to your first one). Well, you see how well that holds true. LOL.

You have some that look like Blue Fawns, some that basically look like Blue Trouts, and some that look like who knows what. You also clearly have some of the ducklings I have described before that have no dorsal spots and very enlarged eye stripes. It seems pretty obvious to me at this point that this is what results (or can result) from m+/m^d and that m^d is incompletely dominant, not recessive. My sport hens also looked very similar to yours other than obviously without the Blue dilution (the little "Blue Fawn" from that breeding to Pastel though was lighter than most of yours).

The big questions are how did the apparent light phase ducklings result and what color are the couple ducklings that are like the others without dorsal spots, but much lighter? One thing I will say about the Saxony color is that originally Dave wrote that Saxony was Bl/Bl, li/li, d/d rather than the currently accepted genotype. I am not sure the history of your Saxony, but perhaps that is what is going on? If so, I would obviously expect those to perhaps be hens. As far as the couple that look like Blue Trouts, I have seen time and time again that li^h partially restores some of the features of wild type, even in birds pure for Dusky. I would not be surprised if light phase does the same, hence the dorsal spots (of course, it could just be that frustrating "variation" in color that I have spoken about, LOL).

Gorgeous little ducklings, Ross! I can't wait to see how they turn out. In the meantime, I promise to get the hubby motivated to help take pictures of some of the apparent Duskies we have hatched this year. Moving the farm has just been such a major project and we're still not up there full time, so we're frequently not there on the same days. Additional pictures are coming one of these days though, I promise. Again, exciting project! I look forward to seeing your progress.

Editing to add- I will also say that it is entirely possibly that some of what has been written about light phase is also incorrect, which has occurred to me over and over again. If that is the case, it might be possible that the light phase, if that is what it is, did indeed just come from the Saxony rather than both parents. The question though would then become why wouldn't all of the ducklings show that then. Hmm... I don't know, I suspect it is that your hen is heterozygous for light phase.