Muscovy genetics/colors??

[henda]

Those don't look like silvers. They are lavenders. Look here  to get a good idea of what the colors look like, and remember that "lavender" = "self blue."


From darkest to lightest in the black series, the single-gene colors are Black --> Blue --> Lavender (= self blue) --> Silver.


"Silver" is the same in muscovies (genetically) as "splash" in chickens -- a black bird with two copies of the Blue gene. To get a silver, you'd need to have either Blue X Blue or Blue X Silver.


Lavender is a recessive mutation, and you can get it from two birds that don't "look" lavender but are split to it -- in other words, they each have one copy of the gene. To show the lavender color, the birds must have two copies of the gene.


Chocolate can be carried by the male but not the female, because it is sex-linked recessive. Males need two copies to show "chocolate" but females need only one copy. So if you got some chocolate birds from two non-chocolate parents, it means your male is split to chocolate, and the chocolate birds are all females.


Chocolate can also combine with Lavender to give Cream. These birds will be almost as pale as a Silver but will have a pale brownish cast to their feathers instead of being a pale gray. If you got Cream babies from two black parents, they will also be female (because to be Cream, they must show Chocolate as well as Lavender, and only the daughters would show Chocolate).


If you got any babies that don't show the brownish color associated with the Chocolate gene, then at least one parent must not have been chocolate. The breeder may well have locked the pair up, but perhaps not for a long enough time for the female to have "purified" if she was exposed to a different male previously.

t
I have just bought my first couple of muscovies - 2 chocolate pied girls, the father was dark pied and the mother chocolate pied. I guess that the father was split for chocolate hence the chocolate ducklings.would I be able

to breed sex linked ducklings from my chocolate pied girls what colour drake would just need .

 

[Miss Lydia]

t
I have just bought my first couple of muscovies - 2 chocolate pied girls, the father was dark pied and the mother chocolate pied. I guess that the father was split for chocolate hence the chocolate ducklings.would I be able to breed sex linked ducklings from my chocolate pied girls what colour drake would just need .

@henda Welcome to BYC Lets see if @learycow can help you with this she breeds and keeps Scovy's, I just keep them for the sheer pleasure of having them..

 

[henda]

Thank you. Actually the more I read and understand it's the drake that should be chocolate and the ducks black for sex linked ducklings. Which is fine, I was just curious and shall probably look out for a nicely marked drake

 

[RachelLane27]

Hi, I thought this old thread might be a good place to ask my moscovy genetics question. I have two juvenile moscovy that I think are female. One is a chocolate barred and the other is a self-blue/lavender barred. If I were to get a drake for these hens, what color drake would produce the most diverse ducklings? I would like to maximize the number of different colors. (I tried using that genetic generator tool, but I didn't totally understand it.)

 

[learycow]

Hi, I thought this old thread might be a good place to ask my moscovy genetics question. I have two juvenile moscovy that I think are female. One is a chocolate barred and the other is a self-blue/lavender barred. If I were to get a drake for these hens, what color drake would produce the most diverse ducklings? I would like to maximize the number of different colors. (I tried using that genetic generator tool, but I didn't totally understand it.)

Unless you get a lavender drake or drake that carries lavender, you won't produce lavender offspring with only a lavender hen.
I would suggest a chocolate or even lilac drake for a variety of color options in the offspring

 

[RachelLane27]

Thank you!

 

[Starbawk]

I'd like to similarly piggyback. I am getting a group of 5 ducklings straight run. One black, one chocolate and 3 my choice of blue, lavender, chocolate or black. Obviously I won't know which will end up hens or drakes but I'd like to maximize my chances of eventually being able to retain one drake and all hens from this 5 and breed for as many interesting colors as possible. Suggestions?