Hey Guys!
I haven't been able to keep up with the board the last several weeks, as my health has not been good this winter. I will try to answer some of the color questions. I have been seeing a lot of very mixed color Calls lately (like colors that could have only been created by multiple generations of mixed breeding colors). Some here, like with the Khaki appearing calls, have been given some out and out wrong information by the original breeders of your birds (sorry I don't remember your screen name now).
Okay, first and foremost.... a lot of people seem to confuse dusky based colors with the similarly colored wild-type based colors (Wild-type being the color of the wild Mallard). Once you know the key differences, it is very easy to see the difference. For example...
Snowy and Silver Appleyard do not look remotely similar, likewise...
Blue Fawn and Blue Dusky do not look remotely similar either.
The addition of the dusky alleles obscures the eye-stripes. That is the most obvious difference that is easy to identify right off the bat. Hens of dusky based colors will *never* have eye-stripes and drakes will not while in eclipse plumage (I just mention eclipse plumage because in nuptial plumage, the dusky and wild-type drake both have solid heads). There are other differences as well, including that dark phase dusky drakes do not have neck rings if they are pure for dusky and the claret is obscured. In the presence of harlequin phase as in the Snowy, the neck ring and claret are partially restored. Again, this is why I say look for the presence or absence of eye-sripes.
Anyway, just identifying this one difference would prevent a HUGE number of misidentified colors. In the new Holderread book, he has *finally* changed the information about Snowy as well (although he still gives not so good advice IMO that you can breed Snowy back to Dusky or Gray and that will give you pure breeding Snowies in the second generation, anyone that understands the genetics would know that only a small percentage would breed true). At any rate, at least having the information updated that Snowy is dusky based, not wild-type, hopefully will begin to convince US breeders to stop breeding Snowies to Grays and creating mismarked birds.
Going back to the Calls earlier in the thread that looked like Khakis... the first one looks almost like a true Khaki. The other shows more obvious signs of recent wild-type (like from Gray or another wild-type based color). It is very possible both are dusky split wild-type and they appear different only due to a natural variation in the phenotype. What is certain is that I would not use either for breeding. Definitely do NOT breed to white. That is horrible advice. You do NOT get Snowy by breeding to White. The genes responsible are completely different genes. At any rate, how you ended up with birds that are wild-type and/or split for dusky would be obvious, as that seems to be a pretty common breeding mistake. The birds though do also look like they carry the sex-linked brown of the Khaki. That is more questionable. What I suspect is that the original breeder really has no idea what color their birds are. There is virtually no way those birds came out of pure Snowies. The breeder must have birds that are obviously the wrong color because to get drakes with visual brown, you have to breed from hens that show the brown (hens cannot be split for brown like drakes). This is not possible if breeding from birds that are all visually Snowy.
Anyway, I hope this helps. I am not able to be online as much anymore, so hopefully that is enough information to guide you in what to do with the birds. As always, I highly recommend any of the books by the Ashtons of the UK. Their colour breeding book is excellent and has the most correct information I have found. There are too many things in the Holderread book that I personally believe to be incorrect (thankfully some mistakes have finally been changed in the new edition). I think the new edition of his book though will be even harder for the novice to understand. I can't say that I will recommend it any longer for people with little genetics experience, as I think it will only confuse people. He does also name a new gene in the book "Sooty" that is supposedly related to Dusky and sometimes makes Dusky appear to be incompletely dominant. I really don't have an opinion yet on the validity of this gene. The question of whether or not Dusky is incompletely dominant though is something that a few of us here are studying. Right now, it does appear to be. Dave mentions in his book basing his decision in part on his Runners and I now own several of his old breeder Gray Runners (as well as some of their other rarer colors), so I hope to further decipher this in the future.
That's just the info I needed. I ordered my Standard of Perfection...just haven't received it yet. Excited to get it tho...I am sure my hubby will make fun of my new exciting reading material! Thanks again!!!
