What color Indian Runners do you have?

[nissa_loves_cats]

I am getting some Indian Runner hatching eggs any day now. I used to have some Fawn and White Indian Runners years ago. The eggs I am getting are mixed colors from among the colors available from McMurray hatchery. But there are so many Indian Runner colors out there!

I'm wondering what colors other people have. Does anyone have any of the really different colors--- like 'Fairy Fawn'? I'd love to see pictures of some!

 

[Wifezilla]

I have a plain old fawn. What she lacks in pizzaz in coloring, she makes up for with her overall insanity

 

[Sweetfolly]

Here's my pair. The White one is my girl, Maisie, and the other one, Rubee, came to me from Sandhill Preservation Center as a "Buff" Runner, which is a pretty unusual color - although, he's a really shoddy example of the color:

Here are a few more of him, as a juvenile, and then again as an adult:

He's not at all as "upright" as I'd like him to be, but I keep him around because he passes some pretty neat color dilution genes on to his offspring. He's the daddy of these Hookbill/Runner cross ducklings I hatched this week:

I've never seen a picture of a "Faery Fawn" Runner either - so I'd be very interested to see any pictures if anyone has them, or "Blue Pearl" Runners as well. They sound pretty, but I've never seen one!

And, have you seen the pictures of "Blue Dusky" Runners on ashtonwaterfowl.net? They're to die for!

 

[nissa_loves_cats]

'Fairy Fawn' is diluted Mallard colors. Don't know why I want some, I just like the name....

I think the hookbill/runner cross ducklings are sweet!

 

[CityChicker]

I have Gray, Blue Fawn, Pastel, Saxony, and White (all of which I am breeding this year). I have a few other colors that I raised over the years that I only have a few left of- Black, Blue, Silver, Fawn and White, Blue Penciled, and Penciled. I miss some of the colors I used to breed, so I will probably replenish some of my stock this year to have more of them next year again. My favorite color is probably the Saxony. I am trying to focus this year on breeding larger numbers of some of the rare colors, so that I can improve my breeding stock (hence some of the more common colors have to take the back seat because of space).

 

[stirkle]

annarie - surely ur top picture runners are white and trout not buff... http://www.runnerduck.net/photo_album.htm

 

[CityChicker]

He is not a Trout. He, obviously, is not entirely correct genotype for Buff, but he is not Trout. Trout is light phase and he is I'm sure light phase as well, but he has other genes involved as well. I don't know if I have ever seen a bird change so much in plumage color. In his current plumage, I would have said he is not Dusky based, but in his juvenile plumage he looks like he is (so, maybe he is m+/m^d, actually it is possible he even has harlequin phase involved in addition to one of those). In the older picture, he definitely looks like he has Blue dilution as well, which he should, but in the top picture he looks like he doesn't. That, in itself, is bizarre (but, I am also not sure how much is the color difference on my monitor). He does also obviously have either Buff dilution and/or Brown dilution going on (again, which he should).

It is just so hard to tell and I have gone back and forth on what I think he might be when Annarie has asked me. When you get so many genes involved as in the Buff color, it can be very hard to discern the actual genotype, because so many genes have similar effects on the plumage when you start combining them. One of the best ways to know is to breed back to pure Grays. I have a Saxony Runner drake I am going to have to do the same thing with. One of the things that makes rare colored Runners so hard to get to breed true is all of the potential recessive genes they carry or combination of genes. Going back to Annarie's drake, I can think of probably twenty different combinations (at least) that could give a similar appearance.

 

[featherfooted]

I have a chocolate trio named Hershey, Latte and Mocha.

 

[Sweetfolly]

Quote:
I know, I know - he's terribly marked. Trust me, I've done loads of research and come up with all sorts of colors that he resembles more than Buff - including Saxony and Trout ...

Sandhill Preservation center only breeds Black, Blue Pearl, Buff, Fawn & White, Grey, Khaki, Penciled, and White Runners - so, unless they're breeding from mixed-colored pens, or he's a weird genetic anomaly that popped up in one of their pure-color pens, those are my only options for what color he is - I got three assorted Runners from them last year when they couldn't fulfill the number of Dutch Hookbills I ordered- according to the packing sheet they sent along, I got 2 Whites and a Buff.

If he were a Trout, he would have had eye-stripes as a duckling and juvenile - like these Trout, Blue Trout, and Apricot Trout ducklings from ashtonwaterfowl.net:

But, here's what he looked like as a duckling - actually, he did look a LOT like the Apricot Trout as a duckling, but he just had some soft blue shading on his face, not eyestripes - which would have become evident when he got his juvenile plumage, but if you look at the juvenile picture I posted of him up in my previous post, he never had a hint of mallard-pattern striping on his face...If you go to the Holderreads Indian Runner photo page (http://holderreadfarm.com/photogallery/runner_ducks_page/runner_ducks.htm), they have a picture of a Buff Runner duckling that looks just like him:

Here's a quote, from Sandhill Preservation Center's catalog, about their Buff Runners:
This is a tough color pattern. Heads of drakes can be bluish-grey or seal brown, but select for fawn-buff.
So, they admit that some of their ducklings still come out off-colored. I guess I just got an extreme example of the bluish-grey end of the spectrum.

I'm disappointed that no one has any pictures of Faery Fawn or Blue Pearl Runners to share!

I might just have to keep ordering Runner assortments from Holderreads until I get one of their Faery Fawns, so that I can finally see it!

 

[tia]

I have fawn and white runners, a black runner,a blue runner, a buff runner.