Auto sexing with silver appleyards?

[Floof]

I am new to ducks and want to try my hand at hatching some ducklings that I can sex at hatch by down color. I have read up on some of the dominant and recessive genetics for ducks but I'm still a little unclear. I know I want to breed a duck where the boys will grow out heavy and fast and the girls will lay an abundance of eggs so I would like to use Silver appleyards as one half of the duck equation but what other color/breed would fit the bill (haha)? Somewhere I read that I could use khaki campbells for the male because they have the chocolate gene but I found contradicting information elsewhere. What would you use?

 

[NuggetTheChicken]

I am not sure about about genetics, but I would use a pure pekin female with a khaki campbell male. The boys would get mom's genetics for large and fast growing and the girls would get dad's genetics for good egg laying. I could be wrong because I don't know much about genetics, but do know that a chocolate drake is needed

 

[Ratchnick]

I would use golden cascade, they were originally bread by dave holderread, they have rouen and kc genetics and a few others, they grow large, and lay lots of eggs like SA. Most importantly they have the brown plumage wich is auto sexing. Important to note that a gc to gc breeding wont auto sex, and i think to get an auto sex offspring the male has to be the gc. This breed was originally created to improve the meat and egg charicteristics production of South American flocks.

 

[Ratchnick]

https://www.holderreadfarm.com/index.htm

 

[Floof]

I would use golden cascade, they were originally bread by dave holderread, they have rouen and kc genetics and a few others, they grow large, and lay lots of eggs like SA. Most importantly they have the brown plumage wich is auto sexing. Important to note that a gc to gc breeding wont auto sex, and i think to get an auto sex offspring the male has to be the gc. This breed was originally created to improve the meat and egg charicteristics production of South American flocks.

I'm planning to get my silver appleyards from them since I'm only about an hour drive and they seem reputable. The golden cascades don't have quite the egg laying abilities of the khaki campbells and my thoughts were to eat the boys and keep the girls for egg laying and selling as sexed ducklings. Auto sexing seems to be limited to only a few strains of the Welsh harliquin and they are sexed by bill color, not down color. Has anyone tried making sex links with a khacki male over a silver appleyard female?

 

[Ratchnick]

To my knowledge Golden cascades only auto sex when crossed, Welsh only auto sex when not crossed. 235 to 300 Is the listed production for the cascades is still excellent. And the males are a few pounds bigger. That being said khaki Campbell have the same sex linked brown the cascades have, so either would work.