Duck Color Genetics Question: Fawn & White (drake) x Black Runner (duck) (PICS)

[Percipen]

here they are today at almost 3 weeks! The boy (blue/darker color) is about 4 days older than the youngest girl (with the brownish head) View attachment 2621173
Legs are all still pink/dusty pink with black and dark gray splash
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and the boy’s are starting to yellow a bit
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tail feathers are still coming in with the boys blue and two black feathers poking out ahead of the rest!View attachment 2621176
the girls you can barely see but they are like a light gray...ones is VERY light ...is that what silver looks like? I think they may be lilac or lavender (what ever those two colors actually look like )View attachment 2621179View attachment 2621180(this is the duck with the lightest tail feathers but u cant really tell because the natal feathers/down are blocking it)

ANYWHOOOO, thank you for coming to my ted talk... i doubt this will be interesting to anyone BUT i know how frustrated i was looking online for pics of what a f&w x black runner looked like so i figure its better to be superfluous if maybe it can satisfy someone’s curiosity down the line!

SO cute!! Its crazy how much bigger your boy is!!

 

[stripedgirls707]

How do these babies look now?!

 

[Luv Ducks]

Hi All, making a thread because I hadn't seen this particular cross asked before and figured I can't be the only one who is curious!!

So I have a Fawn & White Runner Drake (male) and a Black Runner duck (female). all I know about their genetics is that the American f&w has the double blue dilution (I think?) and that black is a dominant "mask" so the duck could be hiding any sort of funny color genetics behind that extended black!

I used the eend calculator and got that the offspring would be blue, diluted blue, and lavender (all pied) for both male and female ducklings. Are there any sex-linked traits in this cross? where are the ones with this like even red tone coming from (they have areas of red where there doesn't seem to be any clear demarcation between yellow (white) fuzz and this rufous reddish tint)

So I went to hatch 10 eggs. all were fertile and only one didn't make it. I ended up with 9 chicks of varying colors, all pied from the runner gene, but not "runner pattern" per se. All ducks had splashes of black OR gray (!) on their legs and beaks, but in specific patterns: every duck had at least the middle toe black/gray and had some level of "pants" (meaning the black/gray looked like they were wearing capris lol).

For coloring, 3 ducklings appear to be dark gray (blue?), 3 appear to be a light gray (lavender? diluted blue?), and 3 are almost a dusky red/brown? They all look drastically different from their fawn &white father, who at their age was COMPLETELY yellow save for one small light mark on the top of his head! also their pied color pattern leaves them all with a distinct stripe of white down their belly, where a runner would have their fawn color on the abdomen, these have completely yellow (white) bellies that continues from their neck all the way down their underside!

I know this is probably a relatively standard cross that's pretty common, but since I had never seen anyone ask about the f&w male x black female I figured I'd put it out there!

ALSO the black duck mom isn't bibbed per se but does have a small patch of white right on her breast it is just like the smallest dot and she's had it since birth

Here are the babies:
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Here's dear old mom and dad as babies and adults (the black duck's beak is now a deep blue/gray, she grew out of the olive green beak!):
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Can you please tell me at what age your Hen grew out of her olive green beak? I have a Rouen Mallard mix, and a sibling to it that already has the white ring around the neck. Both have the olive green beaks and neither one is quacking but yet they look so different. I was hoping the bigger Rouen Mallard mix both from same parents was a girl even though there is no quack yet.

 

[Luv Ducks]

Can you please tell me at what age your Hen grew out of her olive green beak? I have a Rouen Mallard mix, and a sibling to it that already has the white ring around the neck. Both have the olive green beaks and neither one is quacking but yet they look so different. I was hoping the bigger Rouen Mallard mix both from same parents was a girl even though there is no quack yet.

My big one turned out to be the Rouen Mallard Mix with that look while the smaller one that has the white ring around its neck took after the Mallard Drake Dad and has the exact look of the Mallard. Mom was the Rouen Hen.

 

[graypes]

Can you please tell me at what age your Hen grew out of her olive green beak? I have a Rouen Mallard mix, and a sibling to it that already has the white ring around the neck. Both have the olive green beaks and neither one is quacking but yet they look so different. I was hoping the bigger Rouen Mallard mix both from same parents was a girl even though there is no quack yet.

My girl grew out of the beak right about a month or two after she started laying eggs! Are you looking to sex your ducklings by beak color? I find that doesn't really work as a lot of my girls with blackish beaks turn green before they lay and my boys with green beaks turned green when they feather out too but stay green.
I've heard egg laying takes a lot of energy and saps the pigment out (don't ask me how I don't know) but that is definitely what it looks like in Josh the black duck!

Here's here beak the day she laid her first egg (Dec 25 2020)

Here's her beak March 14, 2021, almost 3 months later

her beak turned gray/black pretty quickly though, in some videos from February I can see she's already lost the green!

Hope that helps!

 

[graypes]

How do these babies look now?!

They're SOOO cute! All the babies are Runner patterned with bibs so the white on their bellies connects to their neck, so not a "good" runner pattern" but pretty darn cute!
All girls are white and light lavender or lilac (I'm not sure how to describe) and all the boys are white and blue. Oh and they all are "splashed" with fawn (girls), chocolate (girls), and black (boys)
I'll upload some pics here in a second!

 

[Luv Ducks]

My girl grew out of the beak right about a month or two after she started laying eggs! Are you looking to sex your ducklings by beak color? I find that doesn't really work as a lot of my girls with blackish beaks turn green before they lay and my boys with green beaks turned green when they feather out too but stay green.
I've heard egg laying takes a lot of energy and saps the pigment out (don't ask me how I don't know) but that is definitely what it looks like in Josh the black duck!

Here's here beak the day she laid her first egg (Dec 25 2020)
View attachment 2747126
Here's her beak March 14, 2021, almost 3 months laterView attachment 2747127

her beak turned gray/black pretty quickly though, in some videos from February I can see she's already lost the green!

Hope that helps!

Thank you so much. I was trying to sex them as I am afraid I might have hatched out all drakes. One has a shrill whistle and I also thought only Drakes could whistle. Have you ever heard that before? I have someone that wants a drake and I just need to be sure it is one before I let one go. Their voices are raspy right now with still some peeps and the one that whistles. Thanks again for your help and your duck is beautiful. I never knew bills could change colors that late.

 

[bhaugh]

Were the parents from a runner breeder or did you buy your ducks from a feed store where genetics may not be as pure?

 

[graypes]

Thank you so much. I was trying to sex them as I am afraid I might have hatched out all drakes. One has a shrill whistle and I also thought only Drakes could whistle. Have you ever heard that before? I have someone that wants a drake and I just need to be sure it is one before I let one go. Their voices are raspy right now with still some peeps and the one that whistles. Thanks again for your help and your duck is beautiful. I never knew bills could change colors that late.

I've found that if I have girls, I will start hearing mystery honks around 2.5-4 weeks during what I like to call "duck puberty". All my drakes have kept their peeps until like 3-4.5/5 weeks when their rasp starts coming in! But I think I know what you mean by whistle, with all of my drakes, I have worried about respiratory infections/colds at around 3.5 weeks because of a high pitched noise, almost like a cough or sneeze. However in every case its turned out not to be sickness, but voice cracking! Looks like ducks go through awkward phases just like humans! If it's high pitch and doesn't sound like a honk, its probably a drake I think.The rasp doesn't come in until a week or two later!

Have their first adult feathers come in yet or are they still fuzzy? once all their normal adult feathers come in (they molt ALOT in their first 2 months from nuptial-fuzzy juvenile-first "real feathers" adult-breeding coat all within around 2 months) their voices should be pretty established. Share pics if you got em! They sound cute!

 

[graypes]

Were the parents from a runner breeder or did you buy your ducks from a feed store where genetics may not be as pure?

Totally unpure! they were feed store babies, so I was curious as to what the black duck had beneath the genetic EE "mask", I was also curious about the drake's genetic make up too (if he was RR or Rr, if he had Chocolate, buff, double blue dilution, etc) which is why I bred them to see what I got.
What I can discern with my very basic understanding of duck genetics is that the Dad has double blue dilution as all 9 of his kids show blue dilution (boys being blue black splash and girls being lavender/lilac (not sure which describes their color ) with fawn and chocolate splashes. I am also thinking that maybe the duck has at least one bibbed gene (she has a tiny white patch on her chest) because all the babies' runner patterns are broken with a bib, and because all the babies only have one E from her, that rules out the bib being linked to the double EE (black) trait, right??'
I think maybe the dad has at least one copy of Chocolate because the girls express that in their splash and that's sex-linked.
ALL the babies had (albeit broken) runner patterns, which I believe means dad is RR, coming from runner parents. That's also likely since f&w seems to be the most common Runner color that people own and sell.
Mom is a little close to the floor in her stature, so I think she could have very well have been a descendant of a cross between a normal standing duck and a runner, though her posture is still pretty erect.

The progeny all turned out to be sexable based on color, boys being Blueblack splash and all girls being lavender/lilac with fawn and choc splash, so Idk WHAT that means about moms genetics