Ancona Ducks

[minihorse927]

Thought the sex-link brown only worked with black hen covered by chocolate drake...which gives you chocolate hens & black drakes???

you are correct. The way you stated it earlier you said all babies from that breeding will carry chocolate. The females won't carry chocolate, only the males. When you need a black drake not carrying chocolate over a chocolate Hen, then all the resulting boys will carry chocolate but all hens will be black and can't carry chocolate.

 

[SilkieSensation]

Thought the sex-link brown only worked with black hen covered by chocolate drake...which gives you chocolate hens & black drakes???

you are correct. The way you stated it earlier you said all babies from that breeding will carry chocolate. The females won't carry chocolate, only the males. When you need a black drake not carrying chocolate over a chocolate Hen, then all the resulting boys will carry chocolate but all hens will be black and can't carry chocolate.

Gotcha! I knew about the sex-link with choc over black hen but wasn't sure what the reverse did. Hadn't thot about it actually...lol
Now I just need to figure where blue fits in. It covers chocolate but not black, right? That's why my black & blue flock throws chocolate & lilac. The blue drake carries chocolate & are the hens blue/blue or blue/choc? I haven't paid attention to the sex of my choc babies.

 

[kistner]

Guess just what tried to take huge rabbit about 20 ft away from my pen AN OWL
It also swooped down an scoped my ducks

We lost a couple ducks to an owl a few weeks ago. Very disturbing for my kids (and me).

 

[chickster5003]

Well the ducks aren't allowed to free range for a while

 

[minihorse927]

Gotcha! I knew about the sex-link with choc over black hen but wasn't sure what the reverse did. Hadn't thot about it actually...lol
Now I just need to figure where blue fits in. It covers chocolate but not black, right? That's why my black & blue flock throws chocolate & lilac. The blue drake carries chocolate & are the hens blue/blue or blue/choc? I haven't paid attention to the sex of my choc babies.

your blue drake had to be carrying chocolate. It's how I ended up with a lilac hen from you. Your hens are blue. Your blue drake carrying chocolate over your blue hens will produce black, chocolate, blue, lilac, lavender, and silver. Lavender is chocolate with 1 blue copy and lilac is chocolate with 2 blue copies. A lilac bird is actually silver with chocolate and a lavender is blue with chocolate. A plain chocolate is a black bird with chocolate. Of course females only need 1 chocolate gene to show it while males need 2. If a hen isn't visually chocolate, then she can't carry chocolate.

If you have no hens carrying chocolate, then you will only get pullets that can be chocolate. Some males may carry chocolate but of course won't show it cause you don't have 2 chocolate or chocolate carrying birds breeding. It doesn't matter what the main color of the bird is whether it is black, blue, or silver. Females always pass chocolate to the male, a visually chocolate male will always pass on chocolate to the female and the male both. Just remember it only takes 1 gene foe females and 2 for males to visually be chocolate.

 

[TAMMACLEAN]

So here is a picture of my duckling with the pattern.

 

[SilkieSensation]

Gotcha! I knew about the sex-link with choc over black hen but wasn't sure what the reverse did. Hadn't thot about it actually...lol
Now I just need to figure where blue fits in. It covers chocolate but not black, right? That's why my black & blue flock throws chocolate & lilac. The blue drake carries chocolate & are the hens blue/blue or blue/choc? I haven't paid attention to the sex of my choc babies.

your blue drake had to be carrying chocolate. It's how I ended up with a lilac hen from you. Your hens are blue. Your blue drake carrying chocolate over your blue hens will produce black, chocolate, blue, lilac, lavender, and silver. Lavender is chocolate with 1 blue copy and lilac is chocolate with 2 blue copies. A lilac bird is actually silver with chocolate and a lavender is blue with chocolate. A plain chocolate is a black bird with chocolate. Of course females only need 1 chocolate gene to show it while males need 2. If a hen isn't visually chocolate, then she can't carry chocolate.

If you have no hens carrying chocolate, then you will only get pullets that can be chocolate. Some males may carry chocolate but of course won't show it cause you don't have 2 chocolate or chocolate carrying birds breeding. It doesn't matter what the main color of the bird is whether it is black, blue, or silver. Females always pass chocolate to the male, a visually chocolate male will always pass on chocolate to the female and the male both. Just remember it only takes 1 gene foe females and 2 for males to visually be chocolate.

Ok, my black hens & blue hens & drake are supposed to be carrying chocolate & tri-color. So far, I know they have produced black, blue, chocolate, lilac & possibly a tri-color. I thought they were throwing dark blue & light blue. The lights must be lilac & maybe silver. I haven't kept any to find out for sure, but I will now. I added in a chocolate pair from another bloodline. I currently have the chocolate pair hatched this year, 2 pairs of blue & 2 black hens. It will be interesting to see what I get from them next year. Thinking about putting the little choc boy over the 2 black hens, the choc hen to a blue boy & the other 2 blue hens to the other blue boy. Another hen for the choc boy would be good, but I'll hafta buy, trade or hatch him 1. Any idea what those combinations will givecme besides the sex-links from the choc over black?

 

[minihorse927]

Ok, my black hens & blue hens & drake are supposed to be carrying chocolate & tri-color. So far, I know they have produced black, blue, chocolate, lilac & possibly a tri-color. I thought they were throwing dark blue & light blue. The lights must be lilac & maybe silver. I haven't kept any to find out for sure, but I will now. I added in a chocolate pair from another bloodline. I currently have the chocolate pair hatched this year, 2 pairs of blue & 2 black hens. It will be interesting to see what I get from them next year. Thinking about putting the little choc boy over the 2 black hens, the choc hen to a blue boy & the other 2 blue hens to the other blue boy. Another hen for the choc boy would be good, but I'll hafta buy, trade or hatch him 1. Any idea what those combinations will givecme besides the sex-links from the choc over black?

Chocolate Hen with blue drake not carrying chocolate will produce half black and half blue ducklings. All boys will carry chocolate but not show it, hens will be either pure blue or pure black. If the drake carries chocolate, then you could get chocolate or lavender boys and girls.

Blue on blue makes 25% black, 50% blue, 25% silver. That's as long as no one is carrying anything else. If the male carries chocolate you could get lavender and lilac pullets.

Of course, chocolate drake over black hens makes chocolate pullets and black drakes carrying chocolate.

Tri color is recessive. They have to carry 0 copies of extended black for the tri color or the other odd balls to leak through. Sometimes you'll get one that has leak through on the black when they only carry 1 extended black gene and they will show the tri color or other patterns. I've got a hen here that has a patch leaking through. I'll try to get pictures of her spot.

 

[SilkieSensation]

You would think I would have had silver by now with the trio of blues. Maybe I have. Do you have a pic of silver, baby & adult?

 

[minihorse927]

So here is a picture of my duckling with the pattern.

This is penciling that occurs on black sometimes. If possible you want to avoid this trait. It's not something ancona breeders desire especially if you're trying to breed for show ducks.