Chocolate Genetics

[ShannonMEJay]

Hi, I’ve just had 8 ducklings hatch out of a 3-year-old hen that I bred. I was quite surprised by the variety I got and after reading the colour genetic article, can’t seem to make sense of it.

Details: blue hen sitting on a nest of mixed eggs coming from her, her blue sister, her black and white sister, her buff mother, and an unrelated black bibbed hen.
The mom and sisters have been with me for years, buff mom and her buff sister at the time hatched a clutch of 21 out of a magpie drake. All of the ducklings were either wild type, dilute wild type, black, or blue with one very random surprise full white drake. NO chocolate or fawn or anything like that though.
I just added a drake to my group with unknown history but he’s mostly white with a few grey feathers.

So I guess my question is, where did the chocolate come from? It looks like out of 8 ducklings I have three black and whites, one very dark chocolate, and 4 much lighter, silver? Fawn? Lilac? Lavender? I have no idea lol.
But given history of hens, could I assume the chocolate is sex-link and likely a hen?
Thanks for any insight, genetics are fascinating but I’m not great at them with birds!

 

[Pyxis]

But given history of hens, could I assume the chocolate is sex-link and likely a hen?
Thanks for any insight, genetics are fascinating but I’m not great at them with birds!

Yep, if you have no chocolate hens, the chocolate is coming solely from a drake, and it would mean the chocolates are females. I would assume the new drake you have is either carrying chocolate or is actually fully chocolate 'under' the white.

 

[ShannonMEJay]

Yep, if you have no chocolate hens, the chocolate is coming solely from a drake, and it would mean the chocolates are females. I would assume the new drake you have is either carrying chocolate or is actually fully chocolate 'under' the white.

This is the best picture I can get of the drake right now. I was always just saying he was blue and white?
Also, it seems I have only one actual chocolate, she’s so dark she looks like the black (in the back, standing tallest) so what are the cinnamony looking ones? Are those blues? Is there a chart somewhere that shows duckling colours?

 

[Pyxis]

This is the best picture I can get of the drake right now. I was always just saying he was blue and white?
Also, it seems I have only one actual chocolate, she’s so dark she looks like the black (in the back, standing tallest) so what are the cinnamony looking ones? Are those blues? Is there a chart somewhere that shows duckling colours?

Given those feathers, I suspect genetically he's something like lilac magpie, just heavily marked with white. Explains why a lot of those ducklings are pied! Also means all his female ducklings will be chocolate.

Coming from possible blue hens, you may well have some lilacs and lavenders in there. I see in the picture some black bibbed, a black ancona, and some that are probably lilac magpie. Those are the 'cinnamon' looking ones.

 

[ShannonMEJay]

Given those feathers, I suspect genetically he's something like lilac magpie, just heavily marked with white. Explains why a lot of those ducklings are pied! Also means all his female ducklings will be chocolate.

Coming from possible blue hens, you may well have some lilacs and lavenders in there. I see in the picture some black bibbed, a black ancona, and some that are probably lilac magpie. Those are the 'cinnamon' looking ones.

Thank you! The black bobbed hen and the drake are new to me, I’ve only had them for a couple of months and can’t remember what I was told they were except the hen was Cayuga mixed and the drake Pekin mixed.
I had just assumed he was blue and I’d get a lot of black and blue babies. They were a nice surprise!
Now I’ll have to go learn more about lilac and lavender lol.