Ducks mixing genes for colours - first results ducklings

[Eric Rosario]

hello,
I would like to share some of my results from mixing ducks for colours.

group 1:
2x pekin ducks
2x rouen ducks
2x drake "hungarian peasant duck" identified closely as Ancona
1x white Ancona duck
1x colorful drake called same as "hungarian peasant duck" but firstly I've identified the breed as Silver applyeard later it is closer to welsh harlequin, it looks it's something between. not sure with their genetics. so I'm calling the breed as silver/harlequin for now.


group 2:
1x black duck - pekin x rouen,
2x ducks "hungarian peasant duck" sibblings of the colourful drake in group 1 silver harlequin
1x orpington duck
2x orpington drakes


our ducklings so far:
ducklings 1: mostly black from black duck but two ducklings are same silver/harlequin I guess they are from the parents in group 1 however the genes should be recessive and the drake and ducks were separated, maybe there were some fertilized eggs before they were separated.

ducklings 2: two rouen blue so i was happy that my orpington drakes are orpington standard containing one blue gene, as there is lighter version with two blue genes or darke without blue gene. our first orpington duckling hatched from slightly green egg as I've seen that the orpington female lays these greenish eggs.

ducklings 3: were added to the ducklings 2: for some reason suddenly 3 white ducklings appeared.


ducklings 4: one ancona white with black spots, and second one is brown, merged with ducklings from group 5
ducklings 5: contains several different colours, one is black+blue, some others are dark yellow, or lighter mallard, I'm a bit surprised, and i have no idea about the genese of these, will need to see them as adults.


ducklings 6: another suprise, 2 "chocolates" hatched one with yellow brown head.


more are to come, we have still eggs in incubator, and for now there are only eggs from Silver/harlequin females + orpginton drakes.

based on offspring i should be able to identify closely the genes of parents, however i've messed up the eggs in first ducklings. We don't have the group 1 of parents anymore. Group 2 parents are still active, however the black duck is broody so she is not laying anymore and only eggs are those I need the most from silver+orp.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Oh my gosh that little one your holding in your hand is so precious! Their all pretty but that one ❤

 

[Eric Rosario]

recent status and colours, some of the colours are still chaging. unfortunately the brownish are only females as they are daughters of the Orpington drake and two genes chocolate and buff genes recessive sex linked, so females need only one gene and they are getting it from father however sons need two, so they only carries the brown, for next year we should get brownish drakes too from this year girls.

oldest group: most are black or black with extensive white spots and one is blue drake.
One is brownish female and second one is brown+blue. Two are silver/harlequin, they colour is not yet final, the beak of the female should be black, head brown and most of the body will be more brown as it is now, the drake is now getting more silver tints then his sister. his head should be green, body silver and light cream with black tail and brown chest.



second group:
2 blue rouen drakes, 1 rouen drake, 2 black, 2 white, 3 brown, 1 orpington


third group: 1 white ancona with black spots, some brown and some other different not yet known colours, they appeared first time in this group, i can see one is black+blue (will be drake) the rest are too dark for silver/harlequin, too light for rouen.


and the smallest, they are soo scared still or too shy to take pics: two chocolates black+brown, one blue rouen drake.

 

[Miss Lydia]

They are beautiful. Are you interested in colors because you are or is there other reason like certain colors sell better?

 

[416bigbore]

Awesome post! Very beautiful fowl you have. We too have a similar mix of Rouen, Mallard, pekin mix that are starting to come into their adult colors. I will post our results as well, very beautiful fowl so far.

 

[Eric Rosario]

They are beautiful. Are you interested in colors because you are or is there other reason like certain colors sell better?

this is actually first year we are having these coloured ducklings, i've collected the parents last year. I'm already thinking about to offer some of them for sale and there is already one neighbour who is interested in. I don't think breeders in my country would be interested in mixed breeds, most of them are breeding only pure breeds as these are brought to exhibitions. Breeding the same animals and getting the same results is boring for me. Aside of ducks of course we've mixed several chicken breeds and the results are here, I will need to make some pics about them with notes.

My plan is actually to set up a flock that will produce many different combinations the best would be if the ratio of each could be 1:1 teoretically but for this i would need to get the lavender harlequin http://www.domestic-waterfowl.co.uk/images/overberg/ovb.jpg to prepare an ideal partner that carries each of the gene.

that's why with help of the https://kippenjungle.nl/kruisingEend.html I was able to find out which breed holds which gene.
If a specimen of certain breed like Orpington will breed only with other Orpginton, ducklings are going to recieve only the same recesive and dominant genes, there is nothing to negate them.
but breaking the pairs of gene with other breed which is actually another pair of recessive gene will produce ducklings with negated recesive genes. Breeding these ducklings (sibblings) together will allow in 25% chance for genes to merge again. As there should be total of 4 different recesive genes that should be dusky mallard, harlequin light, chocolate, buff dilution and dominant Blue gene. and Blue can be homozygous so this will create another tint of colour. so teoretically we are getting combination of 10 however most of the combinations will look nearly the same. and of course as these are all wild mallard colours the drake will have his own drake colouring.

including black and runner patern just increases the combinations.

recessive white from pekin will not combine with anything.

 

[Eric Rosario]

Awesome post! Very beautiful fowl you have. We too have a similar mix of Rouen, Mallard, pekin mix that are starting to come into their adult colors. I will post our results as well, very beautiful fowl so far.

i had pekins and we bought rouens too, unfortunately rouen is the wild colour of duck and pekin is recessive white that is not getting any combination with other colours. What I've found out is that rouen x pekin will result in breakin up pekin's pair of white genes resulting that the babies are non-white. That's what i bought last year and the ducklings were black, one of them is still in flock and we are getting ducklings from her eggs. that mean that pekin white could contain dominant black too which is hidden under white. Once the recessive white is negated the dominant black colour will emerge possibly with other colours present. for example blue is dominant too.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Very interesting. Are you also hoping to not only get beautiful colors but other traits like egg laying, meat and sexing by color.

 

[Eric Rosario]

Very interesting. Are you also hoping to not only get beautiful colors but other traits like egg laying, meat and sexing by color.

not sure about the eggs or meat, as colours is mostly my interests.

however from what I know from different sources, khaki campbell should be a good layer, and orpington based on colours genes should be khaki plus other genes, but our orpginton female is not laying that offten as maybe should be. we have no khaki as the only duckling i was able to find last year died.
black femal that should be pekin x rouen cross is very interesting as her body is nice heavy and she laid nearly every day till she got broody and the eggs are biggest from all duck eggs we had. her sons regardless that the orpington father is smaller are bigger than others in flock. they were bigger upon hatching.
i've not found any source of information about inheritance of body size. seems now they got the size of body from their mother and maybe it is linked to the colour too. as the blue drake same from the black female is not that heavy as the black.
for example Aylesbury duck seems to be really heavy duck but the colour is white, maybe this could be interesting to breakin up the breed to take the body size but give it a different colour. Not sure, but I guess the white colour of that breed is the same as pekin just there are some other genes and traits which are making the two breeds different.

and sexing by colours, this actually happens now, as the boys from orpington drake are non-brown and the girls are brown. the groups are bit messed up as there are ducklings from other group which is no longer present.