Breeding Projects -- Waterfowl

[kikidee]

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I'm sorry, I am confused what are 'the Bessemers'? I feel like a dummy while everyone knows and I don't!

 

[GrannyCarol]

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I was going to ask too!

I don't know yet what I will breed for this coming year. It won't be pure Appleyards, I lost my drake. I'm thinking of getting Welsh Harlequins to breed on, I do like them a lot and miss the girls. I'm also wanting to get an Ancona drake or ducklings and breed them. At this rate though, I'll be waiting until next year to breed pure Anconas. I have been messing with crossing the Ancona girls unto a 1/2 Magpie drake (he looks a lot like a huge blue Swede with a extra white). I got one really pretty marked chocolate and white girl out of my chocolate and white Ancona and a couple of bibbed girls, one lavender and one black.

A few years ago, I got a drake out of a close relative to my gray and white drake (same markings) and an Appleyard hen, he was a gorgeous dilute Appleyard color, loved him. I may try for that again on purpose this year, as I lost him last summer. If I could duplicate that, I might try a new strain of my own.

Larry:

Larry's daddy:

Larry's mother:

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

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You sure did! I'm the one that told you that!

Hhmmmm, are you sure that you weren't mislead about what she is? Genetically Rouen/Pekin crosses can't look like that, and she look exactly like an Appleyard.

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

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I'm sorry, I am confused what are 'the Bessemers'? I feel like a dummy while everyone knows and I don't!

The Bessemer is a new Strain/Breed that I'm studying. They are gigantic ducks, and are Buf in color, with unusually long bills (I could have named them Shovelers

).

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

Quote:
I was going to ask too!

I don't know yet what I will breed for this coming year. It won't be pure Appleyards, I lost my drake. I'm thinking of getting Welsh Harlequins to breed on, I do like them a lot and miss the girls. I'm also wanting to get an Ancona drake or ducklings and breed them. At this rate though, I'll be waiting until next year to breed pure Anconas. I have been messing with crossing the Ancona girls unto a 1/2 Magpie drake (he looks a lot like a huge blue Swede with a extra white). I got one really pretty marked chocolate and white girl out of my chocolate and white Ancona and a couple of bibbed girls, one lavender and one black.

A few years ago, I got a drake out of a close relative to my gray and white drake (same markings) and an Appleyard hen, he was a gorgeous dilute Appleyard color, loved him. I may try for that again on purpose this year, as I lost him last summer. If I could duplicate that, I might try a new strain of my own.

I would diagnose Larry's father as 1/2 magpie, 1/2 appleyard-like breed. The reason he looks so swedish, is because that's how the Magpie gene wworks in one dose. One of Larry's Father's had to have not had a black base.

 

[animalsRawesome]

link to bessemer thread https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=8077650

 

[Senna95]

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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.

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

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.

 

[Ducks and Banny hens]

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Yes, there are new genes, as we speak, being studied. Rust (the gene that re-institutes wild color) and Elisabeth (the gene that heavily darkens Aleutian) come to mind.Nobody's sure how they act (dom. Rec. Inc. Dom) Or if they even exist as singular gene (possibly an polygenic effect).

 

[DUCKGIRL89]

How exactly does one make their own lines in a breed? Just by breeding them for a few years and it becomes your lines?