New Muscovy Babies! What color is this?

[Smartie_Pants]

So far, four have hatched. 3 are black and yellow, one is silvery-gray and yellow. The dad is black and white, the mom is solid grayish-white. When she was a duckling, she was all yellow though. Any pics of what it could grow up to look like?

Mom:

Baby:

 

[Bleenie]

The baby looks Blue, is mom a Silver? I have had Silver Muscovies that are a light tan/beige as ducklings & juveniles and will later molt into a silver color...lookign almost all white when they molt as an adult....they're total Chamelions!

 

[Smartie_Pants]

These were the first scovies I have ever had, and I never meant to keep them, much less for them to become my new favorites, so I don't know anything about the colors. When I got them, the man said she was a Lavender. I don't know whether she is or not, I only bought her because she was cute and I had ducky fever last fall. What do you think the mom is? And if the baby is blue, is that a recessive gene that is passed from any scovy, or from silvers specifically?

 

[Bleenie]

Can you post a better picture of Mom? She doesn't look Lavendar to me in the pic.

I'm not an expert on the genetics so please, someone correct me if i am wrong here, lol.
Blue is Black with one dilution gene & Silver is Black with two dilution genes. Blue is not recessive, but incompletely dominant, i guess this is why you sometimes see very, very dark blue Muscovies.

this is for breeding: (duckling colors listed in order of highest percent - lowest percentage)
Blue x Blue = blue, black & silver ducklings(in my experience, usually only a small amount of silver & large amount of blue)
Blue x Silver = Blue & Silver ducklings (with an occassional black)

There are a few websites with breeding & genetic info, I really need to read up more on the genetics but i have been putting it off until i am able to seperate everyone into color pens. Hope i helped!

 

[Smartie_Pants]

Here is the mom as a duckling, about a few weeks old.

Here is the mom today (and she really is that bright, its not just the sun.) :

 

[Bleenie]

She must just be a really light Silver. I have one like her, the head & tail are colored but it's a little darker. Mine also has colored legs.

 

[dougbaja]

Mom is not a lavender, blue or silver. She is probably either blue fawn or lilac and given the great degree of pigment dilution I'll go with lilac (or maybe blue fawn with one white gene?). If you stuff enough color mutations in you aren't going to get much pigment and she doesn't have much! Judging color is always iffy with photos.

Yes blue is codominant. One blue gene dilutes pigment to a bluish color. Two blue genes dilutes pigment to a silvery color. Wildtype is black. Reddish pheomelanin is masked to the human eye by the blackish eumelanin. If there is a mutation that prevents the deposition of eumelanin you will only see the pheomelanin which in the muscovy is termed chocolate. Thus, chocolate is not the production of a NEW pigment, it is the unmasking of an already present pigment. Also, although the mutation is called chocolate because that is the color of the bird you see the biochemical "mistake" is not in the "chocolate" pigment system=pheomelanins. Just as in humans with red hair. A new pigment? NO! The unmasking of an already present pigment. Another example: wildtype color in Budgies is green. The blue mutant bird is because of a mutation in the YELLOW pigment system leaving only the blue pigment present. The yellow mutant bird is because of a mutation in the BLUE pigment system leaving only the yellow pigment present. If both blue and yellow pigment systems are working you get blue + yellow = green. Ta da! This is simplified of course but I think it points out some basic genetic facts that aren't emphasized enough. Also not emphasized enough is that the vast majority of color mutations are dilutions or unmasking effects, NOT the creation of some new pigment.

Rant off.

So mom IMO is showing lilac. Lilac is a dihybrid=2 mutations=silver +chocolate i.e. 2 blue genes at the blue locus=silver and chocolate on the Z sex chromosome (in birds females are heterogametic gender that is sex chromosomes not the same, ZZ=male and ZW=female. W does not carry the chocolate locus just like in humans the Y chromosome does not carry most genes found on the X). Chocolate is a recessive gene but because it is sex-linked (carried on sex chromosome) in the female bird only one dose, not two, results in the phenotypic effect. A lilac bird with feathers tends to look very white until placed next to a real white when you will note it is more ivory and the feet/beak have some color compared to the white. When younger it has some chocolate flecking around the head as I recall which tends to disappear as it ages. Blue Fawn, which is the blue + chocolate combo has more pigment overall and tends to be umm...as I recall more chocolately towards the head and more blue toward the tail although neither are as deeply colored as a true chocolate or blue.

If the male is black and white (one white gene probably, duclair pied may not exist ..shhhh) then he CANNOT have any blue genes. So the duckling can't be silver. Blue? Doesn't seem brown enough for chocolate or brown-rippled. Can you be absolutely sure of both the paternal and maternal source of genes?

Here's some scovy genetics:

http://www.australianmuscovy.com/index/index.php?topic=442.0