My runner flock has come a long way since Whitey, the first one I bought at the feed store thinking I was buying a plain white Pekin.  I had no idea where I was headed on that fateful day.  When I first discovered that Whitey was actually a runner, I thought they only came in one color - fawn and white!  Boy was I in for a surprise.  I don't remember how I found out that they come in over two dozen standardized colors.  But that opened a whole new set of possibilities. 

 

I like being able to tell my birds apart at a glance.  So having one of every color seemed like a great idea.  Then I discovered that my lone goose was actually a female and was determined to set on eggs every year.  And so began the homegrown project which ultimately led to the quest for parti-coloreds.  The first year that she laid, I didn't have any fertile eggs as I had just culled my only drake for beating up on her.  (We don't tolerate brutallity here and I didn't realize until it was too late that her submissiveness was due to her desire to nest.  Reguardless, the drake wasn't trying to mate, he was just plain beating on her.)  I hadn't actually settled on runners yet and got a batch of Khaki Campbells for her to raise.  But she refused to accept them since she hadn't actually hatched any of her own eggs.  They were nice birds, but not my style. 

 

So I got more runners.  The next time she went broody (2003), I knew why my drake was beating up on her and was prepared with seperate pens for the breeding season.  As it happened, I had just three ducks - Double Spot, a fawnandwhite hen from Clearview Hatchery; Freckles, a light blue hen with lots of off-colored spots from Metzers; and Hershey, a chocolate drake from Metzers.  That set of babies opened my eyes to the possiblities of mixing the standardized colors in pursuit of new ones.  Bandit is the remaining hen from that mating.  She (and her sister out of Freckles) turned out to be fantastic egg layers.  The same year she was born, I got my first order of show quality runners from Holderreads. 

 

The following year (2004) I mated Bandit to Tango, an awesome show quality blue drake.  That gave me Tux, a blackandwhite drake and Max, a blueandwhite drake - both carrying good egg-laying genes.  I also got more fawnandwhite hens from Clearview to beef up my hen to drake ratio. 

 

The next year (2005) I mated Tux and Max to the fawnandwhites and got Darcy, a silverbeigeandwhite parti-colored and Charlotte, a blueandwhite parti-colored.  They, too have proved to be great layers.  Also in 2005, I purchased more show quality runners from Holderreads so I would have better "type" to work with as well as some of the colors I was lacking.  That included Patrick, a truly vertical penciled drake. 

 

The 2006 hatch included a baby from Patrick and Charlotte - Riverdance, a whiteandblue parti-colored.  Being Charlotte's son, I have no doubt he is carrying good egg-laying genes.  As you will see in the pictures to come, River is primarily white, but he and Charlotte and some of Charlotte's siblings are proof that the Anconna pattern is possible from pure runner stock. 

 

At times I wish I had had all show quality birds to begin with, but I might not have the egg layers that I do now if I had.  And I wouldn't have witnessed first-hand just how much one generation's type can benefit from the addition of just one superb drake.  I also wish I had the finances and the space to have kept all the birds along the way.  I can only imagine the combinations I could have come up with!  As it is, I also enjoy flock mating with a vastly varied group of colors.  The results are never disappointing.  The combinations seem to be endless and always seem to lead to something unexpected.  I only hatch whatever the goose can cover and the black snakes don't eat, so I only get a few each year.  But each one has been unique.

 

2007 will not be a duck raising year.  In a way it's sad, but in another way it's a good thing.  This year's plan is to get one more batch of Shetland geese and hope to let my lonely goose raise them as her own.  She is laying right on schedule, so now I have to just hope and wait to see if Holderreads fills my order on my most desired week (the goose's "due date").  If not, all may not be lost.  I intend to offer the new goslings to my "mother goose" reguardless of when they arrive.  If she doesn't accept them at first, I will just keep trying.  Worst case scenario, I am sure she will accept them as grazing buddies in the fall, if not sooner.  Perhaps next year we will once again be hatching runners.