Odd Little Duckling

[lordvoldemort]

I hatched out a pair of cute little ducklings and my pekins are 'supposed' to be their moms. My only question is why do they look like this?

I have two drakes one is a rouen mix that is dark gray and the other (dominant) drake is a large black duck that has a green head and dull black body feathers with a tiny bit of white on his chest. He was sold to me from TSC as a Mallard lol. I have a few other hens but have only ever discovered the pekins laying. Their eggs are huge and my other ducks are smaller than the pekins. As for the duckling, he has a white rump, his legs are black, his feet are yellow and he has a black line on his middle toe. Should I expect him to have rouen/mallard coloring? Any help in this would be appreciated. The two are cute anyway

 

[desertdarlene]

He's cute.

None of the rouen-mixes I've seen at the lake have that coloring, they look more like mallards when they're little with a few differences.

I can't wait to see when he grows up. I'll bet he'll be pretty.

I've seen some hybrids mix with white and different colors (mostly black or brown), perhaps that's what he'll look like.

 

[CityChicker]

The color you got is pretty much to be expected. White is a recessive color in ducks that masks all over colors when the bird receives two copies of white, one from each parent. The White parent though still carries the genetic information for the other colors in their history "under" the white. A lot of Pekins seem to carry the genes for wild-type (Grey/Mallard) and also extended Black, Bibbed, and sometimes Blue. Pekin crosses are very often, therefore Grey or Black or Blue Bibbed. I would imagine your duckling will end up being a slightly off-color Black Bibbed. If you breed the offspring together, then 25% will be white in the next generation.

 

[roocrazy]

my rouens over my pekins turned out black and white similar to your ducklings pattern