I've always read breeding crested to crested will give you some ducks that die in the shell and others that are noncrested because crested is a homozygous lethal trait so all crested ducks are heterozygous.
I don't support breeding genetic defects. Nor am I a duck owner. Nonetheless...
My brother has crested ducks from show stock and they are all homozygous. He gets good hatch rates (the males are much better breeders than his runners) and all of the ducklings are crested. When they cross with his runners, all ducklings are crested.
And we hatch dozens, so it's not like this is just dumb luck.
The crested ducklings are healthy and don't show any signs of brain injuries.
Were we lied to about the gene? Perhaps the crested breed has a different gene from crested ducks in general?
Or were the birds they used when tested in the laboratory bred to such an extreme that they started dying in the shell?
Perhaps these ducks have adapted traits to overcome their genetic defect?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378111919309412
I don't support breeding genetic defects. Nor am I a duck owner. Nonetheless...
My brother has crested ducks from show stock and they are all homozygous. He gets good hatch rates (the males are much better breeders than his runners) and all of the ducklings are crested. When they cross with his runners, all ducklings are crested.
And we hatch dozens, so it's not like this is just dumb luck.
The crested ducklings are healthy and don't show any signs of brain injuries.
Were we lied to about the gene? Perhaps the crested breed has a different gene from crested ducks in general?
Or were the birds they used when tested in the laboratory bred to such an extreme that they started dying in the shell?
Perhaps these ducks have adapted traits to overcome their genetic defect?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378111919309412
