Quote:
She is pretty!
The Pekin must have had some harlequin and/or appleyard genes....... And your rouen may have as well, since both of those genes are (supposed to be) recessive to the wild-phase, which your rouen should have had 2 doses of.
Breeding her back to a rouen will not give you 25% that look like her. Whenever you get a white duck involved in a breeding program be prepared for a can or worms. Think of a white duck as a colorful duck, then covered up with white paint. Your pekin could be ANYTHING underneath, and breeding it to a wild type rouen will only tell you SOME of the hidden genes (ie, any of the dominant genes, which is why I suspect your rouen may have been a carrier of recessive harlequin or appleyard).
That said, it is still a great mystory how genes interact with eachother. Your pekin may have had a gene that made the normally recessive harlequin (or appleyard) gene express itsself in its offspring. If you do the same mating again, you may or may not get the same results depending on what genes the babies inherrit.
Gene expression isn't as cut-and-dry as the books would have you believe. There are very likely genes we haven't yet discovered, and lots of interactions between the genes we don't yet understand.
I didn't mean Breeding back to a rouen, I meant Breeding back to kenneth, then interbreeding the offspring. I still think it's far more likely that indigosky got an Appleyard unwhittingly sold to her as a Rouen/Pekin cross. Remember:
-If someone has an appleyard + doesn't know anything about genetics = they will probably conclude that it's a normal duck/white duck X.
