Muscovy color & pattern mapping - calling all scobie breeders for input

[Big Dreamer]

Had a picture sent to me and this may be what I'm looking for as to calico coloring - see what ya'll think...
On the far left and top, check it out. The blue and brown along with the white are clearer. FYI these are all drakes.

The one with the blue looks "Calico" But the other 2 dont really. It also may be a thing with molting. The feathers come in one way and as they mature and get older they become a different color?

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

The one with the blue looks "Calico" But the other 2 dont really. It also may be a thing with molting. The feathers come in one way and as they mature and get older they become a different color?

Oh my, yours are so beautiful! I swear, my 4 change weekly. My little girl, huey, had thought was a drake, started mottled black and white, now has a huge amount of teal and dark green feathering. They are a challenge to bond with, but so loving and friendly. as they mature, i am enjoying them a lot more. I didn't pay much attention as they were my daughters babies. With her work and college, they have become "mine" over time. Now the drake follows me everywhere, and even hisses at my roo!

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

black feather will sun fade and appear brownish in tone as well but molt back to black. So depending where you live and what time of the year the photos are taken the birds can appear tri (calico) in color when all it is sun fading, molting, new feather growth.

 

[EdenCamp]

Have been pouring through the scovy genetics site and haven't been able to come up with notation for the following colors:

Black (Common?, Wild ?)
Gray (Pearl gray?)
Silver (Silver Lavender
Lavender Cream (Lilac cream?)
Lilac (Blue Fawn?)
Fawn (Buff?)

Is it just a matter of mis/slang for the colors geneticly mapped?

Also wanted to double check and verify that we do have the Lilac/Cream (ll) gene in the USA.

I'm 3/4 cross eyed building an excel cheat sheet with all the cross results & % . The web site is nice but I haven't found a way to plug in colors without fumbling around entering the gene mapping. THANKS for any help!

 

[dougbaja]

Off the top of my head...

Black is accepted as wildtype so all genes assumed in a black muscovy have a superscript plus by them unless proven otherwise.

Single gene mutants:
Blue is one blue gene N (Nero is Italian for blue, author was Italian). Thus genotype is NN+ or N+N (don't know how to superscript the plus).
2 blue genes NN provide even more dilution thus a pearl gray or silver color. Silver=NN.
Lavender similar to blue/silver but has differences. Homozygous recessive so Lavender=ll. Often called self-blue because it "breeds true" for this allele as compared to NN+ blue. Self-blue name makes geneticists cringe.
Chocolate is sex-linked recessive and in birds males are heterogametic gender (reverse of mammals, and sex chromosomes look different) so males ZZ and females ZW. Choc male is Z(ch)Z(ch). Choc female is Z(ch)W.

Double mutants of above genes:
Blue + Chocolate=Blue Fawn(sure). Must have been named to be analogous to mallard blue fawn but although somebody thought these phenotypes were analogous they are not homologous. NN+, Z(ch)Z(ch) is a Blue Fawn male. birds have more chocolate towards head and more blue towards tail but always more pale than a choc or blue bird. Juveniles pale.
Silver + Chocolate=Lilac (pretty sure). NN, Z(ch)Z(ch) is a lilac male. birds look white until you see them next to a white and realize they have a ivory/beige cast to them and bills/feet have some color. Tend to have chocolate/orangey flecks towards head. Variable. Juveniles very pale.
Brown ripple+chocolate=Buff(pretty sure). I don't like this name.
Chocolate+lavender=Cream? blue+lavender=pastel? Can't remember,don't have Hollander's table handy. The important point is that THESE ARE NOT SINGLE GENE MUTANTS! THEY ARE DOUBLE MUTANTS! =2 genes! I could use the term "gene interaction product" or say "action of gene 1 + action of gene 2 = phenotype X" if that helps to get the point across. Perhaps instead of arguing about what name to use for the double mutant phenotype better to just call them blue+chocolate etc. That gets the point across of what they are. The same people throwing these double mutant names around incorrectly (at least from the standpoint of fidelity to Hollander's table) are the same people who are confusing these double mutants with single mutants (2 loci versus 1 locus), or I've seen them confuse double mutants (2 loci), with a single locus with multiple alleles (example: ABO bloodtype in humans, 3 alleles in population but one locus so only 2 alleles can be in any one diploid individual, NOT THREE!, you cannot be ABO, you can be AB, AA, BB, AO, BO, OO).

GET HOLDERREAD'S BOOK!!!

 

[EdenCamp]

LOL! Get the book. Read directions? Thats, that's so unmanly! Good thing I'm a duck (G).
People do use different names and it gets confusing. Hard to find good pictures to attach phenotype to for some as well. Blue Fawn I believe is actually Lilac.
Thanks tho! You gave me a lot of info to chew on til I get my hands on a copy - Til then still fumbling around trying to figure out silver and cream. I left ripple, barring, D.pied/incomplete white pied out in short handing as what I saw seemed to be a patterning rather than a color component. I know, I know - get the book. LOL!


PEARL GRAY BUFF BLUE LILAC COMWLD CHOC
NN L+L+ Ch+Ch+ NN L+L+ chch Nn+ L+L+ Ch+Ch Nn+ L+L+ chch n+n+ L+L+ Ch+- n+n+ L+L+ chch

 

[dougbaja]

Your genotypes above I would call: Silver, Lilac, Blue, Blue Fawn...well...actually Blue male carrying chocolate! the way its written, Wildtype (surely the "-" is a typo), Chocolate.

Blue N+N
Silver NN
Choc Z(ch)Z(ch) or Z(ch)W
Blue Fawn N+N,Z(ch)Z(ch) or Z(ch)W (See Feathersite, they have excellent photo of Blue Fawn)
Lilac NN,Z(ch)Z(ch) or Z(ch)W (more dilute than Blue Fawn so paler)
Buff brbr,Z(ch)Z(ch) or Z(ch)W (br=brown-rippled=brown as hatchling, rippled as adult)

N is not dominant, it is a codominant so the alternate allele is also codominant, thus capitalized. So wildtype is N+ not n+. Its important to follow the Z's and W's for gender. DO NOT CHANGE SINGLE GENE MUTANT NAMES, they are established in the literature to prevent confusion of the very sort we are talking about. Double mutant names don't have the same importance, you could try and change them for various reasons (e.g. marketing, I once suggested speaking of chocolate ripple whiteheads as analogous to ice cream with whipped cream on top).

The below is old but is very useful, no double mutants though, scroll to the bottom.

http://sellers.kippenjungle.nl/page6.html

 

[ian4379]

i would like to add edencamp, once you've figured out the genetics and soughted out the slang names put the theory into practice.

the muscovy duck calculator has been the best help for me. for me with my genetics it breeds true. its from the same site that doug has linked above.

i'd like to add that we have bronze and blue together here that's colloquially called fume, its a smokey colour, i've also bred silver and bronze together, again called "tortora" or "turtle dove" it produces a pretty much white bird with light silver from the chest up to the head. its assumed that bronze is the sepia gene as test breedings in sweden with sepia produce the same coloured birds as i just described.

i personally dont believe that there is a calico, as stated its more likely it just fading with the sun, or the white interupting the natural difference in shading of a solid coloured bird. for example blue birds have black heads, if you have white around the neck, it breaks up the change from the blue body to the black head making it seem like the bird has 3 colours. if there was a calico gene there would youd think there would be more of them.

 

[Muscovynmore]

Well, I don't know about calico, but have a triple-colored lavender. She has white on her neck and a few spots of black. Her mother has a few black specks on one cheek, so I'm pretty sure this can be passed on. (Please note that the base color is not "true" lavender/self-blue, it is the result of the double blue gene. Therefore, it can show black.)

 

[Deej211]

I have a muscovy drakelet i thought was white. He has some bronze barring on his head and front of his neck. Comes from a place breeding with whites blues and bronze. Have i got a fume?

I upped the contrast so you can see the barring better. Hes white mostly not yellow