white down on cayuga?

[pekinduck<3er]

My female cayuga that is now 4 months old she had white down showing under her belly? wqat is it is that normal

 

[kswaterfowl]

I would imagine that is the a leaking bib. Or just "leaking" white. For breeding, that is not a bird you want to keep. If you are going to breed from them, the young females should be completely black with no white whatsoever. Eventually as they age female Cayugas will get white feathers and many if they live to 4-9 will turn almost completely white when they are old. But you don't want white showing in the juvenile plumage.

 

[goosedragon]

Quote:
Really? of cpurse it is bad for the duck to show white but it was claimed by many that this was associated with superior green sheen in the offspring. any comment?

 

[JosieR]

my Cayuga has it too. She hatched in April and I started to notice it in the fall. Just a little at first and then it spread. From what I read it's just an imperfection and she wouldn't be a duck I would want to show, which is fine since they're just pets.

 

[pekinduck<3er]

i at least want just one baby from my female! wat will it do to her is the white down on her belly bad or somthing or a imperfection thing if so i just like her to just be my pet but i do want a duckling from her will she grow out of it??

 

[FenDruadin]

It's no big deal for a pet to have juvenile white.

It's just a cosmetic defect & she'd not be good for showing. When people talk about breeding, they assume you mean to try and improve the cayuga breed, which really requires more attention, space, time & research than most pet owners have time for. If you just want to hatch a few babies and either keep them or sell them as pet-quality ducks, then I see no problem with that.

 

[NYREDS]

Quote:
Really? of cpurse it is bad for the duck to show white but it was claimed by many that this was associated with superior green sheen in the offspring. any comment?

In an older female that would be true but not in a 4 month old.

 

[kswaterfowl]

The Standard says its a DQ for any white in the plumage...so its not a bird I would use in my breeding pen. If it were older, say 1-2, I would keep it around, if I had good breed character and I had shown it, but as I said, it shouldn't be in juvenile plumage. We don't currently have them, but did breed them at one point along the way, with most of our stock from Holderreads and some from a couple of smaller breeders in MI and KY

 

[goosedragon]

Quote:
Sorry I seemed to have completely missed the word juvenile. I take it they aren't like geese that can change quite a bit when they get their second set of feathers?

 

[kswaterfowl]

No problem GD! We had some good discussions on other forums in the past, such a shame most of those boards have fallen by the wayside. The geese change so much! I know our Pilgrim hens feather in looking blue almost but by the time they are fully feathered and adults they are that brown-ish grey so typical of the breed...Though you are correct about the people saying females exhibiting white in adult plumage are more likely to pass on nice green sheen as opposed to the purple, but not for the young hens...We had some east indies that we got (through several other places) that were from Ideal originally and that hen had nice color, but the drake had brown in the feathers, so we never bred them. I imagine she would have retained fairly even color as she got older, but we never kept her after we went through the young birds of other breeds from that season.