Campbell Duck Colours

Campbell Duck Colours:
Colour Genetics

What is a Blue Campbell?
Imagine a Dark Campbell with the black markings transmuted to a subtle smoky blue colour. That’s a Blue Campbell. The male head is no longer greenish black (as in the Mallard); it has become charcoal blue. There is no white neck ring, and the breast, flanks and belly are shades of blue dun, a colour seen also in the Blue Fawn Call Duck. Most of the obvious blue colour is on the scapular feathers and the rump, in both the duck and the drake.

Above: Three Blue Campbell drakes, with dark heads, and two Apricot Campbells

Left: Blue Campbell female (on the left) with the paler Apricot Campbell (on the right)

What’s so special about a Blue Campbell?
Most blue breeds of ducks are black overlain with blue! Blue Swedish, Pommern and Blue Orpingtons are basically black ducks, probably originating from the Cayuga, with the feathers partly diluted with blue.

The Blue Campbell is special because it does not have the extended black genes, and when you mate two Blue Campbells together they should produce only Blue Campbells, Apricot Campbells and Dark Campbells.

How do you get the Blue Campbell?
With difficulty! If you were to cross a Khaki Campbell with any one of the blue ducks mentioned above, you would meet several difficulties:

	The Khaki Campbell has brown dilution genes that need to be removed, otherwise all you will have, when you input the blue, is a buff duck.
	All the above blue breeds have a dominant black gene, which is awful to get rid of. It will turn plumage more or less black with only a single dose.
	The above breeds also tend to have a white bib and often white primary feathers. This may be linked with the extended black.
	Many blue ducks are not dusky underneath the black. You may end up with eye stripes in the females, bits of claret bib and white neck ring in the males, and speckled white under the wing.

As you may gather, the above method was not the original way of creating a Blue Campbell. If you are thinking of doing it from scratch, be advised, do not use Indian Runners. The shape is not an insuperable problem; it is the light-phase genes that are present in Runners. They are the real sticking point, being recessive, hiding underneath the dark-phase of the Campbell then popping up with claret bibs and white neck rings in the later offspring.

Once you have got a genuine Blue Campbell, it is easy to refresh the blood-line and prevent the side-effects of in-breeding. Just cross to a Dark Campbell and half of the offspring (males and females) will be Blue; the other half will be Dark Campbells, equally pure.

And what is an Apricot Campbell?
Nothing more than the stable blue form caused by mating two Blue Campbells together. Put another way, it is the dark-phase dusky equivalent of the Saxony: silver-grey head in the male, golden buff plumage in the female, but no eye stripe, neck ring or claret bib.

Blue Dilution	Campbell Sequence (dark-phase dusky)	Saxony Sequence (light-phase mallard)
No blue genes	Dark Campbell	Rouen Clair
One blue gene	Blue Campbell	(Blue Rouen Clair)
Two blue genes	Apricot Campbell	Saxony

What colour genes are involved?

All Campbells, we believe, have the following genes in common:

	m^d Mallard Dusky
	Li⁺ Dark-phase
	Y Dull bill colour
	e⁺ Not black

[The + sign indicates the gene of the wild-colour Mallard.]

Two dilution genes are involved, and differ with the varieties:

	d Brown dilution—in the Khaki; sex-linked recessive
	Bl Blue dilution—autosomal and incompletely dominant

Brown d Not Brown D⁺		Blue Bl Not Blue bl⁺		Variety
d	(d)	bl⁺	bl⁺	Khaki Campbell
D⁺	D⁺	bl⁺	bl⁺	Dark Campbell
D⁺	D⁺	Bl	bl⁺	Blue Campbell
D⁺	D⁺	Bl	Bl	Apricot Campbell