My runner ducks - lots pics - what colour are they?

[ejctm]

Hi folks, I wanted to share pics of my runner babies now they are grown. They are 2 months old today. I also wanted some input about what their colours are officially called. Also any comments about their appearance for breed type would be welcome (good or bad

) They are happy little duckies roaming around my garden with my chickens, and we love them to bits!

I have 2 girls and 2 boys. Quite sure as the girls have been properly quacking for a good few weeks now.

The mainly black one is called Badger and she has brown eye stripes, white splodges on her chest and a tiny white dot on her head. Underneath her wings is sort of grey and white. Her wing band has a shimmer of blue so I can see mallard colouring in her. She really loves to swim and is usually the only one in the water.

The peachy brown one is Daisy and she has no eye stripes. Her bill is the same colour as her feathers. Her tummy is white speckled with light brown. She has just starting moulting again, even though they have only had their full feathers for a couple of weeks. She is quite wary.

The grey one is Duckula and is a boy. He has a white bib, white wing tips and underneath his wings. He is very sweet and trusting.

The whitish one is called Quaver and he is the biggest. He is a bit wobbly on his feet and tends to walk on tiptoes but can run like billyo when he needs to!. He was born with yellow down and a darkish stripe down his head and back. Underneath his wings is white and he has light brown stripes and speckles on his head and body. He is a bit of a loner, and is happy to sit on his own.

The parents are a group of runners who are black, white, dark grey, mallerd-coloured (I think this is called trout?) and a light peachy coloured one, so my ducks are any combination of these, but in fact, none of mine look like their parents at all so far! Must be some genes at work, but I don't understand the rules on genes.

I am going to try and paste a link to my slideshow on photobucket but if it does not work, I will come back and try and edit it to work.

update - still trying to add pics
http://s79.photobucket.com/albums/j156/ejctm/ducks/ducks 1st Sept 2010/?albumview=slideshow

OK, I think this link now works. Managed to slip in a couple of chicken pics too by mistake

Thank you everyone for indulging me in my duck adoration

 

[missred871]

Quote:
well the black one with the white spots on the lower neck looks like my runner/swedish mix and the tawny colored one is probably a khaki campbell, I have all chocolate runners and a swedish chocolate runner mix so chocolate and khaki are the extent of my knowledge lol. might check into it for you if I get a chance.

 

[FenDruadin]

Very pretty!!!! I love those colors. But I don't have names for them--they look like non-standard colors to me. I suspect the breeder had blues, blacks, and fawn/whites in a pen together for a few generations. The black with white bib would come of black on fawn/white, and the other colors would be second or third generation with that mix of color genetics. Except the one blue--the slate gray one would officially be called blue, and may in fact be a pure blue, but other genetics could be hiding under the physical colors.

They are super pretty, though.

And on type, they're actually not too bad. They've got nicely shaped faces, and the carriage is pretty decent. Not show quality, but it looks like the breeder started with pretty good stock. They are quite lovely.

 

[CityChicker]

Gorgeous birds! Really, really pretty.

Let me preface this with your Runner colors over there are slightly different than here in the US. You also have some colors that we do not have here, so you might ask Runner breeders in the UK as well. Two of them are obvious. In the US, you would have one Blue Bibbed and one Black.

The other two would be non-standard colors here. The darker of the two lighter ones resembles a darkly colored Apricot Silver. The other one almost looks like Appleyard with the addition of double Blue dilution (just saying this off the cuff, would have to look closer at the pictures again). I am only guessing on those though. It is much lighter than an Apricot Silver (plus yours has eye stripes, so does not have dusky genes) and it is also much lighter than an Apricot Trout (Saxony). There has to be something else going on genetically, but I'm not sure what. In the US, we would just consider them to be beautiful non-standard colors.

 

[ejctm]

Thanks guys - so I still have a mystery pair!

I wondered if the black could be called black since she has brown eye stripes? Will she lose these do you think, when she moults again, or are these the final colours?

Also, I would be glad if any UK members had some input on names of colours too, as I really don't know the difference between US and UK colour names.

CityChicker, I can email you a pic of the parents if that would shed any further light? I know you are the expert

! As far as generations further back though, who knows?

 

[L0rraine]

I actually ended up with a black one in my last batch with brown eye stripes and it looks to me like the stripes are here to stay. She is otherwise quite black, BUT DOES NOT HAVE THE GREEN SHEEN which I think is mandatory for the true blacks (strangely enough)

. I'll have to get pics of my last group because many of them have remnants of eye stripes which I'm guessing came from a Saxony colored parent in the batch.

 

[ejctm]

That's interesting LOrraine. My black has a green sheen on her head and down her wing feathers, but only slightly. I am sure she is a girl though as she quacks like merryo!

 

[tia]

Your flock looks similar to the ducks my Indian Runner flock produced. I have a blue drake, fawn/white, buff, and black ducks. They are very pretty. The buff one looks similar to my show quality buff - but yours has more color variation on the tail area. Very Nice!!!

 

[ejctm]

Thanks Tia - I would love it if you could post some photos of yours