Lilac Indian runner? Genetics

[Waddlewoods]

I think your duckling has two blue alleles with the brown. I’m not sure if that is Lilac or Lavender as Holderread said that was Lavender but other books say that is Lilac. If so, your Blue drake has to be the daddy and carry one brown allele. If this duckling is a drake, then, your female does indeed also carry brown. This is a duck of mine who has only one blue allele and sex-linked brown. Her mother was a silver Swedish and her father was a Khaki Campbell. She is much darker than your which is why I think yours has 2 blue.View attachment 3953451

So pretty!

Good to know! I'm patiently waiting for their voices to change.

Thank you!

 

[Waddlewoods]

Hi.





Here is what I found :

"Many colors can be produced with a combination of Black, Blue, and Brown, all of which will be black based birds, even when the bird looks nearly white (as can be the case in Silver and Lilac)"

Source - "Dusky Feathers Waterfowl" : https://www.duskyfeatherswaterfowl.com/pencilled-bibbed-black

Does it imply Lilac ducks can sometimes be so light coloured they almost look White...?
If so, it would then mean your Silver/Splash Indian Runner hen could actually be Lilac... right?

That's interesting, because I would not have thought it to be possible for her to NOT be a real Splash coloured duck...!





The white patches are on the same area on the neck... so it could be possible for your Blue drake to be your duckling's father...?

I mean... :



...if a Blue duck can also carry Brown...

(Wow... I am always learning things!!
And I now wonder just HOW did I not think about it AFTER seeing the pictures of Dusky Feathers Waterflown's Blue Indian Runner drake with BROWN Calico spots...?!!)

Besides... :



This (beautiful) girl has a similar colour to your Lilac coloured duckling...?

So, your Lilac duckling may be the offspring of your BLUE drake and your Silver hen...?



Looking carefully at him... don't you feel he could carry the Brown gene?

Indeed : your boy kind of looks brownish/purplish...
...and even when he was just a fluffy newborn duckling, he was kind of tannish - so, actually differently coloured from my Silver drakelet (that was then mostly darkish yellow)...

He looks amazing, but given I am not so familiar with Silver/Splash ducks... I do wonder if a Splash drake is supposed to look like yours, or if he should "just" be coloured as "silver liquid"?

In any case, I would have liked to be the one to adopt him!!

Thank you - sincerely - for the pictures!



You have hatched HUNDREDS of ducklings?!!

Oh my God... that's a lot!
Just for 2024, my chicken hens have hatched 56 ducklings - if I am remembering right -, and... I thought it was A LOT...!!

Wow...

What do you do with as many ducklings...?
Do you sell them?
(I so would have bought Runners from you, if I lived near you...! You have so beautiful colours...!!)



It is (fascinating).

I am still waiting for someone to explain to me the Blue wing speculum gene : one of my Light Dusky Indian Runner drake has Blue/Purple wing speculum... and I don't understand how he could have it, since he is born an ordinarily coloured Light Dusky duckling...?
(Is it a mutation? If so, will his Light Dusky offsprings have it...?
I am so curious...!!)

Yes! I hatched 100s this year. We sell them. My 9 year old runs it as a business. He does the listings/marketing and keeps track of expenses etc. Then he keeps the profits. I did keep some of the ducklings but then had racoons get them all.

I do wish I kept my Silver(?) drake! He was beautiful! My son's got a strong bond with our B&W drake and they did not get along. They were fighting to the point where they were both bleeding and missing all their back neck feathers. I keep hoping I'll hatch another like him. To your point - he could have had brown.and likely did! He was actually hatched from eggs that I got from a friend of mine which was...

Hens:
- blue
- fawn
- silver

Drake:
- chocolate(?) - I never saw this drake but she said he was chocolate but sometimes looks blue depending on the time of year?

As For the current ducklings I guess we'll have to wait and see how they feather out. I can't wait!! Haha. I'll continue to post updates.

The lilac(?) one is definitely female. Got quite the quack!

Here are a few pics from today. The 2 blue ones are interesting because they looked identical but now one of them is almost looking more silver maybe? Time will tell.

This one's black feathers have the most gorgeous green sheen! Can't wait to see it fully feathered!

 

[Papaye]

Hi.

(Sorry for taking so much time to reply.)

Yes! I hatched 100s this year. We sell them. My 9 year old runs it as a business. He does the listings/marketing and keeps track of expenses etc. Then he keeps the profits.

That... is so cute!

Wow... what a good life for a child...!!
He has to be such a responsible, happy boy... good job!
(I am guessing you are really be proud of him, right?)

I did keep some of the ducklings but then had racoons get them all.

Sad...
You don't get animals so they serve as food to wild animals...!!

I don't have raccoons in my area, but I have heard we (now) have them in France - including in Auvergne where I live -, and they apparently are multiplying fast...

I am not afraid of foxes or badgers killing my chickens or my ducks, since the Omlet runs I own are really great for preventing them to get to my birds during the nights...
...But raccoons are different, since they are told to be smart enough to open doors...!!

I hope for you "your" raccoons won't come back; or if they do, you have a mean to trap them of something...

I do wish I kept my Silver(?) drake! He was beautiful! My son's got a strong bond with our B&W drake and they did not get along. They were fighting to the point where they were both bleeding and missing all their back neck feathers.

I had a drake like that : he was really, really mean with my two older drakes... but only during mating season.

I could not give him away, since he is my mom's...
So, I had just kept him separated from the other drakes for several weeks - so they could see each others, but not touch each others.

When I put them back together, they were not fighting anymore.

...I don't know if it would work for every drake?
That's was my first time experiencing it - fighting drakes, I mean...
...and since then, when my oldest drakes decide to be mean with the youngest ones, I keep using this method until they can eventually tolerate each others.

Takes time, but it has worked until now...

I keep hoping I'll hatch another like him.

From what I have learned :
"Blue + Blue" = "25% Silver/Splash".

...But I don't know if we can get the Splash colour with another combination?

What I know is : I got my Silver/Splash Duclair drake from a Blue Duclair egg... and both the parents are Blue coloured.

To your point - he could have had brown.and likely did! He was actually hatched from eggs that I got from a friend of mine which was...

Hens:
- blue
- fawn
- silver

Drake:
- chocolate(?) - I never saw this drake but she said he was chocolate but sometimes looks blue depending on the time of year?

I wish I was an expert about genetics...
Thankfully, we can learn!

A Chocolate coloured drake that "looks Blue depending on the time of the year"...?
That's interesting!!

I would have like to see him.
Maybe he is not actually Chocolate, but I don't know... Dusky...?

As For the current ducklings I guess we'll have to wait and see how they feather out. I can't wait!! Haha. I'll continue to post updates.

Yes. Please do.

The lilac(?) one is definitely female. Got quite the quack!

Hmmm...
Be careful with voice sexing : I had a lot of drakelets that actually quacked like girls when they were "teenagers"...
(Last year, I even had one quacking until he was almost 3-months-old!!)

I am not lucky with voice sexing... Still : that means it is not really so accurate as we are told...

Here are a few pics from today.

Thank you for them : I really love to look at picture of ducks, and yours are especially beautiful!

The 2 blue ones are interesting because they looked identical but now one of them is almost looking more silver maybe? Time will tell.

Sometimes, their colours end up being different from what we thought (looking at their fluff's colour)...

 

[Waddlewoods]

Hi.

(Sorry for taking so much time to reply.)



That... is so cute!

Wow... what a good life for a child...!!
He has to be such a responsible, happy boy... good job!
(I am guessing you are really be proud of him, right?)



Sad...
You don't get animals so they serve as food to wild animals...!!

I don't have raccoons in my area, but I have heard we (now) have them in France - including in Auvergne where I live -, and they apparently are multiplying fast...

I am not afraid of foxes or badgers killing my chickens or my ducks, since the Omlet runs I own are really great for preventing them to get to my birds during the nights...
...But raccoons are different, since they are told to be smart enough to open doors...!!

I hope for you "your" raccoons won't come back; or if they do, you have a mean to trap them of something...



I had a drake like that : he was really, really mean with my two older drakes... but only during mating season.

I could not give him away, since he is my mom's...
So, I had just kept him separated from the other drakes for several weeks - so they could see each others, but not touch each others.

When I put them back together, they were not fighting anymore.

...I don't know if it would work for every drake?
That's was my first time experiencing it - fighting drakes, I mean...
...and since then, when my oldest drakes decide to be mean with the youngest ones, I keep using this method until they can eventually tolerate each others.

Takes time, but it has worked until now...



From what I have learned :
"Blue + Blue" = "25% Silver/Splash".

...But I don't know if we can get the Splash colour with another combination?

What I know is : I got my Silver/Splash Duclair drake from a Blue Duclair egg... and both the parents are Blue coloured.



I wish I was an expert about genetics...
Thankfully, we can learn!

A Chocolate coloured drake that "looks Blue depending on the time of the year"...?
That's interesting!!

I would have like to see him.
Maybe he is not actually Chocolate, but I don't know... Dusky...?




Yes. Please do.



Hmmm...
Be careful with voice sexing : I had a lot of drakelets that actually quacked like girls when they were "teenagers"...
(Last year, I even had one quacking until he was almost 3-months-old!!)

I am not lucky with voice sexing... Still : that means it is not really so accurate as we are told...



Thank you for them : I really love to look at picture of ducks, and yours are especially beautiful!



Sometimes, their colours end up being different from what we thought (looking at their fluff's colour)...

Update:

The babies are all feathering out nicely! The lilac duckling (Miss Nacho - we named all these babies after different cheeses to honour our drake/their father? Blue Cheese who was taken by a predator) is looking more beautiful every day. The white spots she was getting on her neck have disappeared and she is now a solid light brown colour with a definite blue undertone asides from 5 little tiny white dots on the top of her head.

One curious thing since I mentioned the fact that not one of the 100s of ducklings that we've hatched have had an orange bill like our drake (as far as I know), one of the ducklings, Feta - a chocolate bibbed female, has developed some orange on the top of her bill. I wonder if that means she is the offspring of our white and black drake, Trillium?

They are now 8.5 weeks old and 6 out of 10 of them (so far) are very loud and proud females. All the chocolates are female as well as the lilac. Seeing as none of the chocolates are male I guess we still don't know whether both parents carried chocolate. So no answers there. Both of the blue ducklings I believe to be male which I don't believe helps us in any way either.

This one we named Mr. Marble, I believe him to be a drake but will wait for a drake curl to confirm. I tried to get my kids to rename him Tux but they want to stick with the cheesy names. Lol. Does he not look like he's wearing a tux!? So cute!!

 

[Papaye]

Hi.

The babies are all feathering out nicely! The lilac duckling (Miss Nacho - we named all these babies after different cheeses to honour our drake/their father? Blue Cheese who was taken by a predator) is looking more beautiful every day. The white spots she was getting on her neck have disappeared and she is now a solid light brown colour with a definite blue undertone asides from 5 little tiny white dots on the top of her head.

Miss Nacho is so beautiful... woooooow!

Still, that's weird the white spots on her neck disappeared : generally, they tend to get bigger - sometimes even increase - once the feathers emerge... right?

Now, I do wonder what her definitive, adult plumage will look like...? Will she have white feathers elsewhere?

One curious thing since I mentioned the fact that not one of the 100s of ducklings that we've hatched have had an orange bill like our drake (as far as I know), one of the ducklings, Feta - a chocolate bibbed female, has developed some orange on the top of her bill. I wonder if that means she is the offspring of our white and black drake, Trillium?

Hmmm...

I now know when the Pied ("Runner") and the Bib genes are involved, some strange things can happen with the feathers' colour.
Thus : we could see mostly blanck Indian Runner ducks with a (mostly) yellow bill, for example...
(...And we know Black Runners don't have a yellow bill, right?)

So, I would not be surprised your Bibbed Chocolate* hen has orange on her bill - given she is Bibbed -, even if Trillium is not the father.
After all : it could also mean this orange colour is actually a "whitening" due to the Bib (that would be then extending on the bill)...?

(* Sorry : I still don't know if I am supposed to say "Bibbed + Colour", or "Colour + Bibbed"...?)

They are now 8.5 weeks old and 6 out of 10 of them (so far) are very loud and proud females. All the chocolates are female as well as the lilac. Seeing as none of the chocolates are male I guess we still don't know whether both parents carried chocolate. So no answers there.

At least, you were lucky enough to get more girls than boys!

This one we named Mr. Marble, I believe him to be a drake but will wait for a drake curl to confirm. I tried to get my kids to rename him Tux but they want to stick with the cheesy names. Lol. Does he not look like he's wearing a tux!? So cute!!

Ah, ah, ah!
Yes, he does indeed...!!

But you probably won't have to wait for him to have a curl to see if he really is a male.

(God... I love your Splash/Silver hen! I have just got one myself two days ago - we actually call this colour "Lavande" ("Lavender") in France, but whatever -, and I am so happy to have her home...!!)

 

[notallducksinmypond]

ahhh, my people... duck color genetics <3
especially lilac/lavender!

sooo: brown first
if all your brown babys are girls they´ve gotten their brown from their dad!
(short course genetics: ducks are the other way around then humans (XX girl, XY boy) ducks have Z and w as their sex determining chomosome and it is ZZ drake and Zw duck, the Z are bigger than the w so there is "not enough room" for every gene on the w , brown (marked as "d") is one of these genes with no location on w)
so brown duck is d/- , brown drake is d/d and brown carrying drake (no brown plumage) is d/D+

A duck can not give her brown gene to her daughters because she gives the sexe determining "w" and it has no location for brown!

If a drake is brown himself he would have to have two brown genes so d/d
ALL his daughters would be brown because he will give every duckling one brown and a female duck carrying one brown will show brown (d/-)
If his sons will be visually brown depends just on the duck, if she is visually brown she will give her brown to her sons and voila, they are brown (d/d)
if the duck is not brown the boys will just be brown carriers and not visually brown, (d/D+)

in your case you have no visually brown drakes so they must be carriers (d/D+)
HALF of the daughters of a carrier are brown, the color of the duck is unimportant
HALF of the sons are also carriers (if paired with a non brown duck), the other half is no brown (D+/D+)

if paired with a brown duck, half of the sons are brown , the other half are carriers
so: if you happen to see ANY brown MALE ducklings, your splash/silver hen is lilac (or wathever you call a two blue+one brown duck) and definitely the mother of this one
on another note: ALL sons of a brown duck carry brown and can so give brown to their daughters.

but i dont think she is brown...
this is a baby photo of ghost (far right), a male silver (two blue) of a friend of mine, hes older now and nearly white with a dark bill

As I see your clearly brown + blue girl (if lavender Bl/bl d/- or lilac Bl/Bl d/- we will see)
i wonder about mine (pictured below in the front, back is her sister)
could she be lilac (two blue + brown)?
yours is clearly darker toned but same color?!

unfortunately i dont know the parents of these two girls, i rescued them out of a 30m² garden, together with two others...

 

[Waddlewoods]

ahhh, my people... duck color genetics <3
especially lilac/lavender!

sooo: brown first
if all your brown babys are girls they´ve gotten their brown from their dad!
(short course genetics: ducks are the other way around then humans (XX girl, XY boy) ducks have Z and w as their sex determining chomosome and it is ZZ drake and Zw duck, the Z are bigger than the w so there is "not enough room" for every gene on the w , brown (marked as "d") is one of these genes with no location on w)
so brown duck is d/- , brown drake is d/d and brown carrying drake (no brown plumage) is d/D+

A duck can not give her brown gene to her daughters because she gives the sexe determining "w" and it has no location for brown!

If a drake is brown himself he would have to have two brown genes so d/d
ALL his daughters would be brown because he will give every duckling one brown and a female duck carrying one brown will show brown (d/-)
If his sons will be visually brown depends just on the duck, if she is visually brown she will give her brown to her sons and voila, they are brown (d/d)
if the duck is not brown the boys will just be brown carriers and not visually brown, (d/D+)

in your case you have no visually brown drakes so they must be carriers (d/D+)
HALF of the daughters of a carrier are brown, the color of the duck is unimportant
HALF of the sons are also carriers (if paired with a non brown duck), the other half is no brown (D+/D+)

if paired with a brown duck, half of the sons are brown , the other half are carriers
so: if you happen to see ANY brown MALE ducklings, your splash/silver hen is lilac (or wathever you call a two blue+one brown duck) and definitely the mother of this one
on another note: ALL sons of a brown duck carry brown and can so give brown to their daughters.

but i dont think she is brown...
this is a baby photo of ghost (far right), a male silver (two blue) of a friend of mine, hes older now and nearly white with a dark bill

View attachment 3971594


As I see your clearly brown + blue girl (if lavender Bl/bl d/- or lilac Bl/Bl d/- we will see)
i wonder about mine (pictured below in the front, back is her sister)
could she be lilac (two blue + brown)?
yours is clearly darker toned but same color?!
View attachment 3971593
unfortunately i dont know the parents of these two girls, i rescued them out of a 30m² garden, together with two others...

So interesting!! I wonder which of my 2 drakes carried the brown. My blue bibbed or my Ancona coloured (white with black freckles and spots).

I just got some pics of Nacho (potential lilac) today. She's much darker now and more brown than before but still with a purple undertone. She also has some darker feathers and some white feathers here and there.

 

[Waddlewoods]

ahhh, my people... duck color genetics <3
especially lilac/lavender!

sooo: brown first
if all your brown babys are girls they´ve gotten their brown from their dad!
(short course genetics: ducks are the other way around then humans (XX girl, XY boy) ducks have Z and w as their sex determining chomosome and it is ZZ drake and Zw duck, the Z are bigger than the w so there is "not enough room" for every gene on the w , brown (marked as "d") is one of these genes with no location on w)
so brown duck is d/- , brown drake is d/d and brown carrying drake (no brown plumage) is d/D+

A duck can not give her brown gene to her daughters because she gives the sexe determining "w" and it has no location for brown!

If a drake is brown himself he would have to have two brown genes so d/d
ALL his daughters would be brown because he will give every duckling one brown and a female duck carrying one brown will show brown (d/-)
If his sons will be visually brown depends just on the duck, if she is visually brown she will give her brown to her sons and voila, they are brown (d/d)
if the duck is not brown the boys will just be brown carriers and not visually brown, (d/D+)

in your case you have no visually brown drakes so they must be carriers (d/D+)
HALF of the daughters of a carrier are brown, the color of the duck is unimportant
HALF of the sons are also carriers (if paired with a non brown duck), the other half is no brown (D+/D+)

if paired with a brown duck, half of the sons are brown , the other half are carriers
so: if you happen to see ANY brown MALE ducklings, your splash/silver hen is lilac (or wathever you call a two blue+one brown duck) and definitely the mother of this one
on another note: ALL sons of a brown duck carry brown and can so give brown to their daughters.

but i dont think she is brown...
this is a baby photo of ghost (far right), a male silver (two blue) of a friend of mine, hes older now and nearly white with a dark bill

View attachment 3971594


As I see your clearly brown + blue girl (if lavender Bl/bl d/- or lilac Bl/Bl d/- we will see)
i wonder about mine (pictured below in the front, back is her sister)
could she be lilac (two blue + brown)?
yours is clearly darker toned but same color?!
View attachment 3971593
unfortunately i dont know the parents of these two girls, i rescued them out of a 30m² garden, together with two others...

Hi.



Miss Nacho is so beautiful... woooooow!

Still, that's weird the white spots on her neck disappeared : generally, they tend to get bigger - sometimes even increase - once the feathers emerge... right?

Now, I do wonder what her definitive, adult plumage will look like...? Will she have white feathers elsewhere?



Hmmm...

I now know when the Pied ("Runner") and the Bib genes are involved, some strange things can happen with the feathers' colour.
Thus : we could see mostly blanck Indian Runner ducks with a (mostly) yellow bill, for example...
(...And we know Black Runners don't have a yellow bill, right?)

So, I would not be surprised your Bibbed Chocolate* hen has orange on her bill - given she is Bibbed -, even if Trillium is not the father.
After all : it could also mean this orange colour is actually a "whitening" due to the Bib (that would be then extending on the bill)...?

(* Sorry : I still don't know if I am supposed to say "Bibbed + Colour", or "Colour + Bibbed"...?)



At least, you were lucky enough to get more girls than boys!



Ah, ah, ah!
Yes, he does indeed...!!

But you probably won't have to wait for him to have a curl to see if he really is a male.

(God... I love your Splash/Silver hen! I have just got one myself two days ago - we actually call this colour "Lavande" ("Lavender") in France, but whatever -, and I am so happy to have her home...!!)

Just an update PLUS yet another mystery...

Unfortunately Nacho (the suspected lilac duck we had been talking about) disappeared recently without a trace. I hold out a bit of hope that MAYBE she is on a nest somewhere and will show up with babies in a few weeks but we do have a ton of predators here being in the forest.

On another note: I recently hatched more duckies (of course lol) and I have a gorgeous 1 month old baby (Uno) who is the most beautiful colour! When they hatched I wasn't' sure which way it would go - chocolate or blue, but the feet were so light I knew it wasn't just chocolate. Now that Uno is getting feathers the best way to explain it is purple. I'm thinking Uno is a proper lilac.

The parents would be between the following ..

Hens: silver, lilac(?), chocolate, chocolate bibbed or black

Drakes: blue, black bibbed or snowy

Curious if your thoughts. Adding pics of them as a babe and now.

 

[Papaye]

Hi!!

Unfortunately Nacho (the suspected lilac duck we had been talking about) disappeared recently without a trace. I hold out a bit of hope that MAYBE she is on a nest somewhere and will show up with babies in a few weeks but we do have a ton of predators here being in the forest.

Ouch... I so hope Miss Nacho is hidden somewhere, sitting on eggs...

On another note: I recently hatched more duckies (of course lol) and I have a gorgeous 1 month old baby (Uno) who is the most beautiful colour! When they hatched I wasn't' sure which way it would go - chocolate or blue, but the feet were so light I knew it wasn't just chocolate. Now that Uno is getting feathers the best way to explain it is purple. I'm thinking Uno is a proper lilac.

The parents would be between the following ..

Hens: silver, lilac(?), chocolate, chocolate bibbed or black

Drakes: blue, black bibbed or snowy

Curious if your thoughts.

Huuuh...

Dad is : your Blue drake - he carries Brown in my opinion (I have made a lot of research since last year, so I'm going to trust what I have learned!).

Mom is : Miss Nacho.

It is just what I think, so don't take it seriously.

...I still wonder what colour is Miss nacho exactly...?
She carries Brown, clearly, but also shows the black feathers that normally appear on Blue plumages... and she is so much darker than other Lilac ducks...!!

Adding pics of them as a babe and now.

Thank you for the pictures.
I really appreciate the fact you take the time to post them!