SWEDISH Duck Thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lovely Emily]

Thank you. She was pretty. Her white was pretty messy, but she was getting old (5 years in may) I was hoping to improve by breeding her to the perfect drake in the picture, improving the bib, while adding the Rust to the offspring. Rust makes the wingbar mottled gray and brown, with the entire underwing being a khaki/gray, and the breast and abdomen have browning barring. Beautiful and very rare.

 

[70%cocoa]

I am not breeding Swedes this year after all. My very valuable (and cuddly) Black Rust hen (my only hen at this point) went in to lay an egg this moring d had a fatal hemorage. (*sobs*) That duck was among the most valuable ducks in the country! Dead! No! I still have two Blue non-Rust drakes, though.

I'm so sorry about your duck

What a terribly sad loss.

 

[Lovely Emily]

Thanks.

It's not so much sad as it is dissapointing. There aren't many ducks in that color, since that color is adverse to the Swedsihs Standard, which prohibits any expression of brown. So most Rust ducks get the dinner treatment, therefore there aren't really any populations of them. They seem to be spontaneous mutations.

Emily

 

[Lovely Emily]

It's also dissapointing because I'm not breeding Swedes on account of that was my only duck. If I can find another swede duck (or 2... or 6), I still have two drakes to breed them to. Right now all I have to breed is a project mating.

 

[Stormview]

the last batch of eggs that were effected by the power outage hatched today
out of the ten original eggs in the batch i set 7 were fertile..
5 of the 7 hatched despite the power being off for well over 24hours

so now out of the 3 batches that were effected i have 7 ducklings..
the next batch is due to hatch on the 11th of april these were not effected by the power outage
there are 6 fertile eggs my duck was being a bit slack at laying towards the end..

she has started to lay again though so i will continue to collect and set eggs every 10 days

so in the seven ducklings so far from a blue to silver mating i have gotten
4 silvers 1 blue and 2 yellow

unsure what the yellow ones will turn out to be but i suspect they are probably splashes..

i heard some of you talk about the rust in the blues.. i thought this was an undisireable traight caused by sun bleaching?? my blue drake has a bit of rust...

i think using black birds would take the rust out of blues...
i will be growing out all my ducklings as they are my first batch's i cant wait to see how they turn out.. we be very interesting..

thats one thing i love about swedish is that they are challenging to breed to standard and it is an interesting journey getting there...

i also breed blue chickens but the blue swedish is a whole differnt thing again... so glad i picked blue swedish ducks i love them... by far the best breed of duck lol!
but im bias...

 

[Stormview]

oh and by the way my new duck arrived safely wow what a huge girl....
she will definantly give me some size in her prodgeny if nothing eles..
she is very different from my other 2

 

[70%cocoa]

Can't wait to see some more pics of your new girl. Glad she arrived safely!! It's good to have some size added to your breeding program. Swedish shud be fairly big.

In terms of the way Swedish are viewed in Australia, any brown in the feathers (anywhere) is seen as a serious fault. Introducing a black bird won't remove it. I expect it's caused by recessive brown present in the birds' makeup. Just a theory. At any rate, it's something to steer away from in breeding.

Blue ducks do get a kind of dirty brown tinge over the months, especially over summer, and this is due to the sun. It's not the same as brown/rust in the feathers, which actually appears as brown feathers or brown flecks in the feathers. The dirty tinge to the feathers that's caused by sun exposure will disappear when the bird moults and turns a nice blue again. The rust that is a fault will not disappear after moulting.

 

[70%cocoa]

PS. Congratulations on the hatches too - what a fabulous result!!!

 

[Stormview]

great thankx for that info.. he hasnt had his first moult yet so will be interesting to see what happans after he moults
some of my blue australorps get a bit of sun bleaching too.. and as you said does moult out..
i hope that is all it is on my drake or ill be in search of a black drake sooner than later!!!!

 

[jess5254]

I have a male blue swede and a female. I will be hatching there eggs as soon as my call ducks are done with the bator. I love my swedes they are awesome, they better than my chickens they never miss a day.