New Muscovies -- silver barred maybe?

[jmc]

I would call those Black Barred. The great Dave Holderread specifies that Barred is a genuine pattern in muscovies.

The birds you have pictured there are young. Barring (as distinct from Rippling (which is a feature of brown-type muscovies) tends to be very prominent in young birds, then largely disappears once they get their adult plumage. The Brown Rippled muscovy remains rippled as an adult.

Barring may be bred into scovies of any color. Rippling can not--that is a feature of the brown dilution birds.

To make matters even better. The pattern of most of them is--in addition to being Barred--called Duclair Pied or Magpie. It is NOT the most common plumage pattern!! Good news for you!

They are good specimens of the Duclair pattern. It is tough to get a perfect Magpie pattern, but those are nice ones. You'd better keep them, as that Magpie pattern could also be bred into your lavenders, or into any color for that matter.

So here is my prognosis. Your magpies will lose most of the barred appearance at their molt into adult plumage. They will retain a faint barring however, but not the beauty of the juvenile bird. After this time, you will have strikingly lovely black and white magpies.

 

[rainplace]

What exactly is barring?

 

[jmc]

Barring is a recessive trait which manifests itself in a transverse stripe or 'bar'--often at the tip--of a feather.

Barring is most prominent in Black or Wild Type Muscovies, or in birds of a Blue dilution, though it also can occur, as mentioned above, in birds of any color.

Again, the barred pattern practically disappears in the adult bird

Barred ducklings have mostly YELLOW down with lead color bills, however.

The (Brown) Rippled bird --at least according to the experience of one geneticist breeder-- BROWN down and BROWN legs and feet.


BUT I AIN'T NO EXPERT!

 

[rainplace]

Thank you! Whenever I saw the word I was thinking something like barbed. so I would keep looking for sharp things... haha

 

[arllcountrygirl]

Quote:
Thanks
I think these are all hens - so if I breed them with a barred lavendar what colors do you think I would get?

 

[MDC]

Your birds are actually a black barred pied bird. Any color + white = pied.

It kind of depends on whether there are any hidden colors in your birds, if you breed a true black bird to a true self-blue then you should get black ducklings that carry self-blue (pastel). If your ducks already carry the pastel gene then you might get black and self-blue ducklings.