Muscovy color & pattern mapping - calling all scobie breeders for input

[dougbaja]

Wow got an email alert. Blast from the past. Whites, blues, and bronze? Boy I dunno. It looks closest to a silver chocolate (lilac) in birds I've seen but the pigment (what little phaeomelanin there is) isn't as smooth a gradient as I would expect. Plus no chocolate in the flock? Plus if he is mostly actually white and not highly diluted then not a bunch of dilution genes. Probably one white gene and bronze I would guess but I don't think my opinion should garner that much weight as I've never knowingly seen a bronze or fume in the states.

 

[Deej211]

Im in australia. Apparently we dont have the chocolate gene here or our bronze is the same as your chocolate...i dont know lol

 

[ohogue]

Resurrecting an old thread but... Is this the "calico" you were searching for?

 

[Muscovynmore]

Resurrecting an old thread but... Is this the "calico" you were searching for?

That looks like a blue duclair pied. Her head's darker, but that's not uncommon (unless, of course, her head really is black, but that's not what it looks like to me). The feathers on her back and head are different ages because of how ducklings' feathers grow, so her coloring should even out a bit when her back feathers replace themselves.

She's pretty. Dark heads are a good thing in blues. And duclair pied is always a good thing. . . .

 

[ohogue]

Thanks! I guess it's not easy to see in the picture, but she has blue and brown on her back. Like blue fawn--is that what you're saying will even out as she matures?

 

[Muscovynmore]

Whoops, didn't really notice the brown. Sorry! I meant her dark head versus lighter back and wing feathers. As for the blue fawn or not, I'm not really an expert on that color. I've found that like black feathers, blue feathers fade to a brownish shade before the bird molts. Some birds show this tint earlier than others, but a blue bird with a genuine brown-and-blue coloring isn't as common as we like to think (especially since new feathers usually come with an edge of color--which does not make a Muscovy "calico" or anything. Muscovies are simply awesome like that).

She looks like she could well be a "blue fawn." Not calico, because that refers to three distinct patches of three different colors. But blue fawn? Definitely possible. I'd like to see a picture of her when she finishes her next molt. Or, you know, whenever. 'Cause ducks are always worth looking at.

Anyway, I think it will be easiest to tell when she has entirely new feathers. New feathers in a blue fawn will have that chocolate tint, whereas a normal blue will gain the brown tint over time.

 

[mymoneypit]

I've only been breeding this year, but got some interesting babies, and this thread is the only place I've seen another duck like this guy. The gene stuff makes my head spin, I just wonder what to call some of these colors. I'm assuming the one next to my three color "lefty" is cream barred, and some have that beautiful perfect magpie(?) Markings, unlike the random splatter of color on white of normal pied.

Looking here, I hit the jackpot on my starter ducks genetics, with all these colors, patterns, in one blue drake and two of those "calico looking but I don't really know what to call them" hens.

 

[mymoneypit]

Momma duck, she needs a molt! What is the proper term for this color?

my first clutch, the light color one in front, is this lavender? She's definitely barred, and has lovely blue eyes.