Can anyone help with the possible genetics behind this?

Trisseh

Duck-duck-chicken!
Jun 21, 2019
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4,305
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NW Ontario, Canada
Hey everyone! I hatched out 2 eggs from my blue runner drake and my silver appleyard duck; I had 3 eggs but the last failed to pip. Out of these, I wound up with a yellow duckling (pictured on the right) a black bibbed (which is the one that died) and this interesting little brown one. I’m not sure on further back generations but my blue runner came from either a blue/blue, blue/splash, or black/blue/splash pairing. (There were blue and black drakes, and blue and splash ducks that were possible parents to my drake.)
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At first I thought this one was blue, but her legs are a chocolate color, and the down is staying brown instead of lightening up and turning more blue. She’s now 2 weeks old. I’m not great with genetics but anyone have any insight for me? Could it be buried further back in my drake’s ancestry? I’m very curious to see how this little one turns out regardless, but wondering how I wound up with a brown duck. Haha.

here are the parents: (excuse the toughness of the appleyard, she’s broody and I have to force her out to get a bath. Lol)
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If your duck and drake were purebred, you would expect to see the children be black-bibbed and blue-bibbed.

Your your duckling being brownish suggests that it is chocolate-bibbed. There a couple of scenarios where that could happen, but by far the most likely is that your drake carries one copy of the recessive chocolate allele and passed it on to a daughter of his. So that duckling is almost certainly female.

I find the yellow color of the other duckling to be surprising. I am not sure how that would come about.
 
If your duck and drake were purebred, you would expect to see the children be black-bibbed and blue-bibbed.

Your your duckling being brownish suggests that it is chocolate-bibbed. There a couple of scenarios where that could happen, but by far the most likely is that your drake carries one copy of the recessive chocolate allele and passed it on to a daughter of his. So that duckling is almost certainly female.

I find the yellow color of the other duckling to be surprising. I am not sure how that would come about.
Thanks so much for your reply! I was chalking the yellow/white duckling up to the odd pure white appleyard that sometimes pops up, but not really sure there either. Haha. I’ve vent sexed both and both appear to be female. Thanks so much for your insight! I have 2 more eggs the duck is sitting on and I’ll post what they wind up being too, once they’re hatched, in case it gives more insight. :D
 
just thought I’d share an updated pic of these 2 :) they’re 8 weeks old, both female. The other 2 eggs the duck was sitting on did not survive hatch - the duck killed them both. 🤦‍♀️ But one was another white and the other was blue. :(

I like the wild looking pattern coming in on the chocolate ones wings; the white appears to be getting some light fawn/buff markings coming in on her back, so it’ll be interesting to see what they wind up with for adult plumage. Also, the white one has blue eyes and I love it. Lol. Their names are Spigot (the white) and Sprocket (the choco)
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