A+ Wild Type:  Creates a pattern of four yellow spots on the back of the duckling as well as a prominent eye stripe.  While it's commonly accepted that wild type does not affect adult coloration, it can cause the adult bird to have more white in it.

a  Atipico:  Recessive.  Removes wild type markings and may Cause brown down in chicks. 

b  Barred:  Recessive.  White bars on a colored duck.      The white bars molt out at maturity.

br Brown-ripple:  Recessive.  creates alternating bands of color which persist into adulthood.

C Canizie:  Dominant.  Causes the chick to be born with yellow near it's eyes.  In a CC duck, the head and neck quickly turn a clean white.  In Cc, the white takes longer to come in and isn't clean.

ch Chocolate:  Sex linked recesssive.     Dillutor of eumalanin resulting in a brown bird.

N  Blue dilution:  Incomplete dominant.  Dilutor of pheomelanin (red).  Heterozygote is blue, homozygote is silver.

l  Lavender:  Recessive.  Diluter of both pheo-menlanin (red) and eumelanin (black).  Results in a gray bird with reddish tones.

f  Sepia/faiogeno:  Recessive.  Dillutes skin color creating a pink beak and yellow feet.

P  Self-white:  Co-Dominant.  White.  Homozygote is pure white.  Heterozygote has a black cap (also called the Black Cap white).

yes, I know that I'm supposed to use Pp+ to describe pied.  It's easier to use Pp.  The + just denotes which version of the genotype is "default".  In Muscovy, the black wild type with white wing patches is the common version.

AA:  Wild type.  Any cross will give all wild type, but if crossed to Aa or aa, then some of the offspring will be a carrier for atipico.

Aa:  Wild type carrying atipico.  Crossed with another Aa, or to an aa, some of the offspring will be pure for atipico.

aa:  Atipico.  Crossed to aa, all offspring will be atipico.  Crossed to Aa, half the offspring will be atipico, the other half will be wild type carrying atipico.  Crossed to AA, all offspring will be wild type carrying atipico.

bb:  Barred.

Bb:  Not barred, carrying a barred gene.  Crossed to any other bb or Bb, some of the offspring will be barred.

br/br:  Brown Ripple. 

Br/br:  Not brown ripple, but carrying a gene for brown ripple.  Crossed to any other br/br or Br/br, some of the offspring will be brown ripple.

CC:  Pure for Canizie.  The duck will develope a white head and neck.

Cc:  Canizie.  The duck will develope a white head and neck, but slower and not as clean as a CC.  Cc crossed to any non-canizie duck will result in half non canizie, and half canizie babies.

ch/ch:  Chocolate drake.

ch/Ch:  Drake carrying chocolate, but not chocolate.

ch:  Chocolate hen.

Nn:  Blue.  Crossing two blue will give you blue, silver, and black offspring.

NN:  Silver.  If you cross two silvers, the result is all silver offspring.

nn:  Black.  n simply means "Not Blue", so nn does not really mean black, it just means the lack of blue.

ll:  Lavender.  This is a pale blue bird with slightly dusty reddish tones.  Overall it does appear rather purple.

Ll:  Not lavender, but carrying the gene for lavender.  Crossed to any ll or Ll, some of the offspring will come out lavender.

LL:  Not lavender.

ff:  Sepia.  Dilluted skin resulting in a pink beak and yellow feet.

Ff:  Not Sepia, but carrying a gene for sepia.  Crossed to any other Ff, of ff, some of the offspring will be sepia.

PP:  White.  A PP NN bird will be silver pied with no cap.

Pp:  If there is no other color present, this will result in a white bird with a black cap.  If there is any other color present it results in a pied bird with a cap.  A Pp NN bird will be silver pied with a cap.  The cap can either be silver or black.

pp:  Not white.

Capital letters denote the dominant state of a gene.  PP is white, since the P is capitalized, it means that white is dominant.  ff is sepia.  The lower case f means that sepia is recessive.  F, or not sepia, is the dominant form.

Wild type and common are not the same thing.  A solid black duck is a common, not a wild type. 

Any color of duck can be wild type.  It's just a pattern of the down.

So, to move on to some more genetics:

Nn ch:  Blue fawn hen.

NN ch: Buff hen.

NN chch: Buff Drake.

Nn chch: blue fawn drake.

On the farm, I use an even further form of shorthand when dealing with ducks.  For buff, it'd just be "double blue with complete chocolate".  I say complete chocolate because it's sex linked.  The hen will only have one gene, while the drake has two.  Thus, saying a double chocolate would be completely incorrect in reffering to a female Muscovy.

When it comes to dealing with some of the lavender crosses, it's easier just to say "Double lav, single blue, complete chocolate, hetero white."  ll, Nn, Ch, Pp.  Lilac cream pied with a cap.  Very likely to be carrying the trait for splash (as splash is related to the hetero white gene).

Ll, Nn, ch, Pp is just a pied blue fawn carrying a lav gene.

ll, NN is double lav double blue, or Silver lavender.  Or is that one light silver?  It's hard to keep track of the names for the pastels, since there's a bunch of them and they are all pretty rare.

In any case, there are different names for colors, and it's hard to keep track of what each name is or means.  It becomes easier to simply use the genetic form for the ducks.

 So, since I like to use my own shorthand for the ducks, it's hard for me to explain in names or lables.

I'm working on splash ducks.  Most of the splash are ll, Nn, Pp.  The double lav, blue, hetero white mix have the highest success rate for splash.  I say blue because either NN or Nn can show the splash trait.  Note that NN is really silver, I just call it double blue when working with genetic lines.

It's also difficult for me because not all of the traits that I work with have "Official" genetic codes.

There are long feathered blue with white wingtips.  Long feathered is recessive, blue is Nn, white wingtips are dominant.

Genes are a stable and reliable thing.  Names change and have different meanings.

So, if you have a bunch of chocolate and blue ducks and you get a pastel baby?  You have a double blue, complete chocolate... or buff.  NN, ch (ch).

Single blue with complete chocolate is blue fawn. Nn, ch (ch).

Single blue, complete chocolate (remember, drakes have two ch genes, while the hen has only one), double lav is lilac cream.  Nn, ch (ch), ll.

I'd love to list all the possible names and combinations, but that'd take forever.  There are some charts Here  which might be more helpful.

Don't get the wrong idea.  Even if you memorize every color combination in the world, there are going to be times when you look at a bird and go "It's a Pastel."

"Which Pastel?"  "No idea."

Sometimes you just have to look at mom and dad and look at the charts and make a good guess.  Each genetic set has a specific outcome probability.  If a color has a fifteen percent probability in a set, and you only have seven chicks?  There is a chance that color will not be in your hatch.  So, don't be discouraged if things don't line up exactly. 

That's the official list of Muscovy genetics. 

Unofficially, there are some traits that I use that don't yet have genetic notations.  They are important for some of my breeding programs though, and I'll list them for anyone else who'd like to use them.

Long feather:  Recessive.  Can express as long drape feathers above the wings, as well as long feathers on the shanks. 

In the past I was working on longer feathers, but at a certain length they start breaking off and just make a mess.

Soft feather:  Recessive.  This gene results in soft furry feathers on the upper back, chest, and underbelly. 

Self Color:  Recessive.  This gene creates a solid colored duck with matching feet and beak.  A self silver will have a light gray beak and feet, a self colored blue will have a dark gray to black feet and beak.  There will be no variation of color on the whole of the bird, with the exception of the occasional bib.  Feet will have no occurence of yellow spotting or markings.

White wingtips:  Dominant.  This trait is only important for the breeding of birds with white butterflies, duclair, and magpie. 

I personally love the gunmetal blue wingtips on black and faux bronze and do not encourage the occurence of white wingtips in darker colored birds with irridescence. 

However, a white butterfly can be very attractive on ducks which do not develope the irridescent blue flight feathers (blues and pastels).

White shoulder patch:  This gene is usually associated with wild type, but can occur in any bird.   This trait is a hallmark of the species.

Bib:  The bib is usually associated with self color and atipico.  In many birds it will dissappear at maturity.

In pied birds, the bib can be mistaken for more pied.  Self colored birds will never be pied, but a pied bird can carry a self gene.  Atipico can be pied.

Lace:  Recessive?  Lace is a disputed trait.  There are birds who have dark edges on their feathers.  Whether or not there is true lace is up for dispute.  However, I have managed good lines which have dark edges on the feathers and the trait is repeatable.

Tapered feathers:  Recessive.  Creates feathers which come to a point at the end rather than being rounded.

This gene is one of the most difficult to work with.  The good silkies all have the gene for tapered feathers, as it results in a smooth drape. 

The problem with tapered feathers is that it's such a finicky trait.  Black ducks almost never get the tapered feathers and no amount of breeding has gotten the tapered feather to breed true in blacks.

How this affects your flock?

Long feathers look best on solid colored ducks with no lace.  Short feathers add accent to laced birds.

White wingtips can remove the most gorgeous trait of black ducks:  namely the gunmetal blue flight feathers.  However, a white wing butterfly on a blue duck can be very attractive. 

In my flock, the silkies have long tapered feathers with soft feathers and the lavender gene with the defect of "Unstuck" feathers.

At first the defect for unstuck feathers was creating some ugly tails and a ratty look overall.  I've managed to isolate the unstuck feathers to the upper back, chest, and the back of the legs.  In short feathered birds the unstuck just looks ratty.  In round feathered birds it looks chunky. 

So, to create the perfect look, the secondary traits can be pretty important.  I know I didn't list all of the secondary traits... and there are a lot of other factors that you can breed for to create your perfect duck.  This is just my list.

Please Keep in Mind:  Wild type is a dominant gene that is not desirable.  A duck with even one gene for wild type will have the four spots and the eye stripe.  The problem with wild type is that it produces irregular and sometimes unpredictable color and quality in adults.

Self colored is the best gene to use for breeding solid colored ducks.  If you desire the white shoulder patches or the dillute skin of bronze, then you'd have to use regular atipico.  Though, the wildtype self colored can produce some excellent solid colored birds which will always have the wing patch.  But, you also risk random discoloration.

If you are interested in promoting the standard of the Muscovy, then it's important to try to remove all wild type birds from breeding.  They're just too unpredictable in quality to make good breeders.

As for my references to "Bad breeding" through out the site, it really isn't.

Since some of the lines aren't perfect yet, I have wild type genes still running around.  Wild type is like a weed.  It will take over a flock if you don't watch it.

There's also canizie, barred, and even some ripple left in the lines.  The ripple shows up now and then.

If we weren't careful to prevent inbreeding, we'd have all wild type, barred, canizie birds out there.  Those genes can easily take over a flock after a few generations.

When I talk about bad breeding, I really mean that most people aren't going to want to go around crossing chocolate ducks with blue ducks with black ducks all willy nilly.  It's not a good Standard practice for getting clean color lines.

We do it in order to verify breed lines and in order to test how different colors work.

Other than that, if you see what we refer to as "Bad Breeding" colors, then what you're seeing is an unmanaged flock which will result in crosses and mixes which can mess with your breeding program.  (and likely a few recessive genes hiding somewhere.)

Then again, if you want mixed colors to play with, they can be a lot of fun.