ShannonMEJay
Hatching
- Jun 2, 2023
- 3
- 0
- 9
Hi, I’ve just had 8 ducklings hatch out of a 3-year-old hen that I bred. I was quite surprised by the variety I got and after reading the colour genetic article, can’t seem to make sense of it.
Details: blue hen sitting on a nest of mixed eggs coming from her, her blue sister, her black and white sister, her buff mother, and an unrelated black bibbed hen.
The mom and sisters have been with me for years, buff mom and her buff sister at the time hatched a clutch of 21 out of a magpie drake. All of the ducklings were either wild type, dilute wild type, black, or blue with one very random surprise full white drake. NO chocolate or fawn or anything like that though.
I just added a drake to my group with unknown history but he’s mostly white with a few grey feathers.
So I guess my question is, where did the chocolate come from? It looks like out of 8 ducklings I have three black and whites, one very dark chocolate, and 4 much lighter, silver? Fawn? Lilac? Lavender? I have no idea lol.
But given history of hens, could I assume the chocolate is sex-link and likely a hen?
Thanks for any insight, genetics are fascinating but I’m not great at them with birds!