AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

What colours are my muscovy's? the front drake has lots of brown colour with a litte grey aswell but lots of brown and fawn colouring

What would be the best coloured duck to breed him too to get more of the brown colour?

One is a Blue and White the other is a Black and White.

No I have to disagree the front drake is not blue and white it is more likely to be Chocolate/White Muscovy like the picture at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Musco ... _Union.JPG Yours is not as dark Dave but on its way.

Here is blue & white


From http://www.wickedfoodearth.co.za/

No it is not likely to be Chocolate as it doesnt exist in Muscovies here in Australia yet.
And if it was another colour on it the marjority is Blue and White so it is a Blue and White.

I may need glasses or you do Stuart but it's not blue and white I agree with Egyptian Geese its defiantly got brown on him and lots of it, did you look at the link he included Stuart? I think it’s very clear it’s not blue and white.

You say "Chocolate as it doesn’t exist in Muscovies here in Australia" Stuart how do you know? You can't possibly know that, no one can?

By the way nice looking musssie Dave well done, I want some of those bluechocolate/white ducklings when you breed them.

So that it doesnt keep you awake at night muscovymad i have edited my post to include the word "yet" in case someone who has been secretly breeding them comes forward.
But there is no records of them being here so until that person comes (if there is one) i dont think there is any.

The bird is mostly Blue and White and thats what i would call it if it were mine.

Firstly nice pictures of your Muscovies Dave and thank you for sharing them with us all. I also have to agree with most of the comments regarding your drake it is not your average blue & white I can see some blue fusion but it is also clear to me I can see the brown coloration which is very dominant on the drake pictured. So let focus on that and where you go from here Q. do you have any ducks showing the brown colouration? If so then all Muscovy lovers are in luck as we may now finally see the 'brown' gene appearing before our eyes. Don't listen to the small number of knockers of the waterfowl world you are on to something here and it will good to see the colour available in Australia. Please keep us all in the loop on your progress and if you need advice on waterfowl then please ask we have cornered the market on experts of waterfowl on APF. Again thank you for sharing

Thank you all very nice of you, yes I have other with the same brown some even darker brown on them and not just drakes but some ducks as well I will take some more photos on my next day off when I have some more ducklings of the brown colour you can buy some muscovymad happy to help you guys out

The pied drake is a little difficult to see in this photo & I haven't seen another link (how do you see that?), but he does have some "brown-ish" colouring from what I can see. Some factor for brown other than bronze may or may not be here (& in him); always the possibility of a new mutation because they have occurred many times in the past . If something does exist here in Aus then it isn't well recorded nor displayed (or probably widespread). Certainly nothing like the gene for chocolate in the states that I have seen.

Often when I have seen evidence of some brown/fawn such as in the above drake it has occurred in combination with blue/grey? But never on its own, ie, never a self chocolate coloured bird like that known in the USA. Davesducks, we do have "bronze" here though & it looks as though you may have a bronze bird also, so possible that the above drake has the gene for bronze & blue dilution combined? Could explain the softening of some of the brown to more of a fawn shade in some feather? If your drake had more colour (as opposed to no colour), then we may see more clearly the amount of brown which exists; very possibly considerably more on the neck & breast?

Heterozygous blue varies considerably from a darker blue to that of very light blue/grey from what I have seen, probably dependant upon additional existing melanisers/diluters. I think it is important for different people to put forward different views as in this post, for without such discussion how would we come to any conclusion? If it was a gene that acted similarly to the reported choc gene in the US then it should be recessive & sex-linked. If your you mated your drake to a black duck, then all female progeny should express the colour (choc) to some degree, while none of the drakelets will. If both sexes exhibit some brown (not bronze cast to black feather) then it is an autosomal recessive gene & the black duck carries one dose hidden; similar acting to that which could be expected from the autosomal recessive bronze gene.

At the end of the day, unless clear breeding program & records kept it is difficult to know what exactly is in a birds genetic make-up.