Wondering about call duck breeding

[DylanP]

Hi everyone , im adding some call ducks to my flock but id really like to breed non pet quality ones , i know the seller has black , chocolate and blue bibbed and a bunch of patterns , my question is i guess is which pairs or pens would give me the best outcome on getting those colors back or getting new ones ?

 

[ronott1]

@Isaac 0 might be able to help

 

[DylanP]

Okay thank you i think i may be going to pick them up tomorrow

 

[Isaac 0]

I'm not the best with genetics, but I know @Pyxis is.

Best of luck with them, and make sure to post lots of pictures!

 

[DylanP]

I was going to go with what I assume is black bibbed , chocolate bibbed and blue bibbed first but I decided to get pairs of mallard , apricot , pastel , buffs and silvers if those colors are available , i would just like to know what makes what lol im completely new to duck genetics

 

[Pyxis]

That is a LOT of colors to be mixing, lol.

I'm assuming that when you say you don't want to breed pet quality ones, you're meaning you only want to breed for accepted colors?

Basically, if you want to keep from getting a bunch of mixed colors, keep your same colors together. There are a couple exceptions though.

Firstly, I have to ask, what's Apricot and what's Pastel to you? I'm not sure where you are, but from Apricot I would have assumed the UK, since that's what people in the UK call what we call Pastel in the US. But then you also said Pastel, so now I don't know, haha. I don't want to give advice and we get our wires crossed because we're calling colors by different names.

What I can tell you, though, is that black bibbed, blue bibbed, and silver bibbed can be bred together. You could also breed black bibbed and chocolate bibbed together.

Buffs I wouldn't breed with anything else, just other buffs.

Silvers - again we're running into a color name issue, because I don't know if you mean solid silver, as in two copies of blue dilution, or silver as in what people in the UK call what we in the US call Snowy.

 

[DylanP]

Im gonna pair em off an have a male and female of each , i was gonna mix black , chocolate and blue bibbed, i was going by colors i seen online , i live in Newfoundland, im not too sure exactly what they look like all i know is that they were imported

 

[DylanP]

Heres what im assuming are the apricots , silvers and pastels , id definitely love to know what you guys in the us call the colors and some pictures ( not my pics im not sure if i can use them or not im sorry in advance if i cant )

 

[Pyxis]

i was gonna mix black , chocolate and blue bibbed

I would avoid mixing chocolate and blue, unless you're okay with creating Lavender and Lilac, which are not accepted colors.


Okay, so, the first picture you posted of 'silver' Calls is something that is very rare, though you can sometimes find it in mallards. I've been trying to get ahold of some to play around with it, because no one is really sure what that is. According to some info I once found online, it's a recessive autosomal dilution gene that's doing it - which would make it an entirely new gene. Which is why I want to get some to see, but again, it's very rare, and you're unlikely to find any.

Picture two, that Silver is harlequin. It's what in the US we call Snowy. That's pretty common, you probably won't have trouble finding that. That color should be bred basically to itself, or you can breed to gray (which might be called Mallard color where you are).

The next pictures are the same color. Apricot is what it's called in the UK, pastel is what it's called in the US. That color you can breed with gray (mallard) and blue fawn (blue mallard).

 

[DylanP]

Ahh okay , so silvers are a must have ,i like having different genetic birds in my flock , i wouldnt mind about creating new colors jus as long as it dont make em color leaked an stuff i thought i could get apricot , mallard , buff , pastel , and silvers i also could get bibbeds and whites but wasnt sure if i could breed solids outta those so decided to go with pattern pairs when i get them