Trout/Harlequin/Snowy Indian Runner Crosses (Breeding Comments Only!)

 

Recently I came across pictures on Facebook of some ducks that a friend of mine acquired for herd dog training. After contacting the friend and a friend of hers I finally ran across these pictures of the friends birds. (Not all pictures are ours, See bottom for proper credit.)

***For Blue Trout, Apricot Trout & Brown Trout see next post.***

FOR GENETIC REFERENCE!!!

 

 

A bunch of young birds showing typical trout or light phase markings with eye stripes. These look a lot like purebred Trout Indian Runners in that awkward teenager stage.

 

 

Two ducklings: these are trout marked ducklings.

 

 

A Momma-duck with her brood. (ducklings L-R: silver/splash, harlequin, trout, harlequin.)

 

A trio of breeder birds. They show a little of both breeds, they are more elongated than a typical Welsh Harlequin and their bills and heads show the Indian Runner influences. The females have very distinct eye stripes which is a fault in Harlequins but is common in Mallard-patterned genetics.

 



 

More birds for type perspective.

 

Ducklings again: Note how three of the ducklings appear to have the nice trout markings found in typical trout ducklings, two are harlequin/snowy because they are yellow with the tan blush over their heads and wings, and the third is probably either light blue snowy (Aleutian) or a splash/silver.

 

The Trout Indian Runners we bred for several years. (No longer breeding Trout) but you can see that the drake and drakes pictured above are very similar, The pictures above are all Welsh Harlequin x Indian Runner crosses, the birds below are pure Trout Indian Runners.

 

The Trout variety is a Light Phase Mallard, meaning the Light Phase is expressed over the top of a normal Gray (Wild Type).

 

Trout Genotype: M⁺M⁺ lili e⁺e⁺ bl⁺bl⁺ C⁺C⁺ B⁺B⁺ r⁺r⁺ D⁺D⁺ Bu⁺Bu⁺

 

Female Trout Genotype: M⁺M⁺ lili e⁺e⁺ bl⁺bl⁺ C⁺C⁺ B⁺B⁺ r⁺r⁺ D⁺- Bu⁺-

Male Welsh Harlequin Genotype: mdmd lihlih e+e+ bl+bl+ C+C+ B+B+ r+r+ D+D+ Bu+Bu+

Female Welsh Harlequin Genotype: m^dm^d li^hli^h e⁺e⁺ bl⁺bl⁺ C⁺C⁺ B⁺B⁺ r⁺r⁺ D⁺- Bu⁺-

 

**note: Gold Welsh Harlequins will both be homozygous for Brown Dilution, so  B⁺B⁺   

 

 

Typical Welsh Harlequins

 

 

 

Below are some of our 2012 Welsh Harlequin, Snowy Mallard and Trout Indian Runner ducklings. Note that the Runners already show the longer bill length and stance even a few days old. They show variation from duckling to duckling but each one has the same dark head "Mohawk" and then single brown eye stripes that run "through" the eye, and brown over the back. The Welsh Harlequins and Snowy Mallards have the light brown blush eye stripes and heads but are generally yellow with the color showing on the head.

 

(Welsh Harlequins & Snowy Mallards Left: Trout Indian Runner Ducklings are brown ones on Right.)

For More Information on Trout Indian Runners and Color Breeding please visit the links below, they are all very well put together websites, worth reading.

http://www.ashtonwaterfowl.net/indian_pics.htm

http://www.runnerduck.net/photo_gallery/default.html

http://www.steepleducks.co.uk/ducks.htm

 

 

Photos 1-6 photographed and owned by D. Williams

Photos 7-10 photographed and owned by K&S Waterfowl Farm

Catching Up!

We have had an excellent breeding season and have lots of beautiful birds growing and maturing in the pens. We have decided to downsize a little bit more and are in the process of completely getting rid of all of the Indian Runners. We are happy to announce we have added White Muscovy Ducks to our breeding program (for Micah) and we are happy with the direction and results of this year's breeding pens, so much so, that we plan to leave the exactly how they were for next year. With another breeding pen of 2013 WH's in a separate pen.
 K&S

The breeding season is well under way now and while we are getting a fair number of eggs, we are only incubating a few eggs in our Brinsea Eco 20 at the moment. We will probably plug the much larger 1202 in a the next couple of weeks, but we haven't had a consistent number of eggs to justify it until the last few days. Everything except the Mandarins and Silkie-things are laying and we've shipped a few hatching eggs off already, but we are incubating bantam duck eggs currently and should have some Calls and East Indies hatching soon (fingers crossed) and then Wyandotte bantams, a couple of Welsh Harlequins, and then more Call eggs!!! We are planning to let the Romans and Pilgrims go broody and hatch their own babies this year as we really don't need any more of either breed this season, we want to keep our goose numbers about the same for next year as well. The Wyandottes are a recent addition, we finally talked the kids out of Modern Game bantams!!! They are very kid friendly, but not hardy, and we didn't hatch many of them, so the Wyandottes are friendly, VERY fertile, and the kids think they are cute, so they are replacements for the MGB's I hope!

The 2013 Breeds List

Welsh Harlequins both silvers & golds

Snowy Mallards

Gray Mallards

Black East Indies

Magpie Calls

Pilgrim Geese

Tufted Romans

Mandarin

Wyandotte Bantams in black & blue

Paint/White/Splash Silkie/Sizzled Showgirls  *Micah's Breeding Project*

 

 

What a season!

The breeding season is over and our '12 show season officially kicked off yesterday at the White River Poultry Show in Spencer, IN. We had a very good hatch of Welsh Harlequins this year and because of that, we have decided to cut back on some of the other breeds a little bit in order to make sure we have enough space for them. We focus primarily on the Welsh Harlequins, and there are many nice females from this year we have decided that we should add to that flock and have even more breeding females for the '13 breeding season.

Micah's Birds

As many of you know, our son, Micah has his own little flock of birds that he enjoys. He is VERY opinionated when it comes to poultry, and has some very interesting ideas of what appeals to him as "pretty" or "cool". He has the Magpie Call ducks that are pictured somewhere already on the blog, in addition to those, he also has a Showgirl breeding pen set up currently with a white Silkie cock in with a splash Silkie hen and a white Showgirl hen. He has a breeding quad of Birchen Modern Games, in LARGEFOWL. As well as a Birchen Modern Game bantam cockerel and a white Silkie cockerel/pullet (we still haven't figured out what sex the little Silkie is, but it is still really young.) I will try to get nice pictures of the Moderns for you all to enjoy...

Games

"In Pencil" 2012 Breeding Plans

These are all still "in pencil" as we haven't actually divided the pens or switched anyone around yet, but this is the plan so far.

Welsh Harlequins:
4 males, 8 females (3 trios of silvers, 1 trio of golds)
All bred together for the first portion of the year, and then around May, we may seperate the gold drake with our best silver hens to hatch gold breeder females from.

Indian Runners:
2 males, 4 females (2 trios)
All bred together for the breeding season, in hopes to increase the flock and give us a few more birds to go through and cull down to a decent flock.

Mallards:
5 males, 10 females
J.P. Drake x KS old hens, KS old drake x JP old hens, KS young drake x ks young hens, the wild greys will stay together as a pair, the J.P. gray drake will go in with one of the snowy hens we hatched last Spring from another line that is pied in hopes of producing all grey pieds. (Just for fun!)

East Indie:
Pair together

Pekins:
Still not sure on this project.

Calls:
Pair together.

Nankins:
Still don't know, probably won't decide until they begin laying anyway.

Largefowl Gamefowl Project:
Red Male x Black Modern Game Hens

Micah's Projects:
Birchen, Silver Blue, Blue & Black Modern Game bantams.
White & Splash Showgirl/Silkies