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Pink Feet And Orange Beaks


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I've been reading lately about what pink feet and orange beaks might indicate. So I took a look at my flock, which consists of 48 budgies, and made a chart showing for each bird its foot color, its beak color, its visual mutations, and any known splits it has. (I also wrote down splits it could have inherited from its parents, but that I can't tell until I breed it if it has those splits, just to be more thorough.) For example, if a dad is known to be split to cinnamon, then I wrote that his son has a 50% chance that he got split to it, too.

 

 

Then I pored over all the data, and I came to some conclusions. Since it's just a sampling of 48 budgies, of various mutations, my conclusions might not match up to what others of you with a lot more experience already know. But I thought this could make for interesting discussion, and some learning experience, for anybody interested in these things. :)

 

 

My conclusions:

 

1. Orange Beak always means recessive pied, either in visual or split form. (17 birds with orange beaks, all are either visual or split to recessive pied, EXCEPT for three, which I didn't breed and can't say, but I plan to test breed those eventually, and see if they fit into my theory.)

 

2. Orange Beak is not connected to cinnamon. (13 visual cinnamons, 6 have horn colored beaks, the other 7 with orange beaks all have recessive pied, either visual or split.)

 

3. The following mutations all have pink feet: Visual Cinnamon (13), Visual Recessive pied (5), Dominant Pied (4), Ino (1), and Clearflight Pied (2). (Obviously those are small numbers, so I wouldn't be surprised if other people say that these mutations don't all get pink feet)

 

4. The following mutations can have any color feet, i.e., the mutation itself does not determine foot color: Greywing, opaline and spangle. (An interesting note, spangle seemed to turn the feet a more bluish grey, and where it was combined with cinnamon, so the bird had pink feet, those had a hint of grey to their pink. Don't know if that means anything about spangle or not.)

 

5. There was only one other type of bird that had pink feet that didn't fit the above categories (which were cinnamon, rec pied, dom pied, ino, and CFP) : Some, but not all, of the split to recessive pied birds had pink feet, even though they didn't have any visual reason for the pink feet. So I looked closely at all of my split for recessive pieds, and came to one more conclusion.

 

6. Split to recessive pied MIGHT be indicated by the following: a.) Spot on back of head (which we already knew), b.) orange beak, and/or c.) pink feet. (And of course, some split to recessive pieds have none of these.) So my theory is, that a bird with one or more of these indicators, that has no visual reason for the indicator, MIGHT be split to recessive pied. I have 6 birds that have one or more of these indicators, without having a visual reason for it. 3 of them I bred, and I know that they are split to recessive pied. The other 3 I plan to test breed to find out. (1 with a head spot, and two with orange beaks)

 

 

So, what do you more experienced breeders think? Is there any merit to my findings? Do you have examples that show that I figured this wrong? I realize that with a small sample, I can't rely on my own statistics. So more input and discussion would be great. :)

Edited by Finnie
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  • 6 months later...

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I noticed something interesting about a baby I have in a nest right now. I thought about making a new topic for these photos, but then I thought it would fit right into a topic about pink feet.

 

 

This is the first pinky I've ever had that I can see noticeable blue/grey color to the feet at an early age. (8 days old) Above, I had mentioned that my spangles seem to have more blueish/greyish feet than my other birds, and this chick has a spangle dad, so I wonder if that might have anything to do with it?

 

 

QO4rightfoot8daysold-1.jpg

 

 

 

QO4rightfoot8daysold.jpg

 

 

 

QO4leftfoot8daysold.jpg

 

 

 

QO4leftfoot8daysold2.jpg

 

 

 

If any other breeders read this, could you tell me at what age you first notice your babies feet color changing? It's not something I've ever paid attention to before.

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Hey that is cool! I think I've noticed it before but not usually before an age where I put rings on them (though I haven't had rings for about 3 years). I'm hoping that 2 of my pairs will start laying soon - one of which has a spangle mother so I'll keep an eye out!!

 

n663519347_1780026_5846.jpg

 

Adding to that - I have a yellow lacewing with pink feet and had clearbody greens with pink feet too.

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Just thought you might be interested - whether it is a coincidence or not - I have recently acquired a pied elegant parrot - it has pink feet too, whereas the normals have blue feet. I wonder what that means for my elegant parrot with one pink toe....

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Just thought you might be interested - whether it is a coincidence or not - I have recently acquired a pied elegant parrot - it has pink feet too, whereas the normals have blue feet. I wonder what that means for my elegant parrot with one pink toe....

 

 

Oh, I forgot you mentioned the pied parrot with one pink toe. I was going to say, that with the way pied genes remove pigment, maybe that toe was just a random pied out spot?

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Guest K&M Breeding

With budgies the color of the feet(not toe nails) usually denotes the body color - Light colored birds Like Albino, Lutino, Sky blue etc have pink feet.. the darker the body color the darker the feet, normally all my grey budgies have dark bluish-grey feet I had one Grey Spangle that his feet were not only bluish-grey but part of his beak was as well, I've also had some "sky blues" with the same Darker bluish grey color on the beak - and its normally always at the top of the beak right where it comes out of the head, and sometimes will run down the side - Often times looking like a bruise but it's not a bruise it is just how they are :)

 

as for the Toe nails I am not sure if this goes for budgies I've actually been paying closer attention to my Pied budgies trying to figure it out so far none have it

 

but I do know in cockatiels Say you have a Grey cockatiel Normal - no other mutations mixed Like Pearl or pied . The toe nails should all be Very dark grey to black IF they have 1 single "Clear"(pink/white) toe nail they are split to pied - same goes for flight feathers 1 clear flight feather means its actually a split pied cocaktiel - I've only known this to be the case in cockatiels but that doesn't mean it can't go for other birds as well. But Here is the 1 thing in cockatiels I think has been mistaken in budgies as well, When a Cockateil is Split to pied the main way to know is they have a "clear patch" on the back of their head/nape - I know a lot of people will say a budgie with a few clear patches on the back of the head means its split to Recessive pied - I've Yet to find this true though I have many who are not visually pied have this "Split to pied" marking and Have been put to known birds who are either split to recessive pied Or are visually recessive pied and have never gotten recessive pieds - how ever if they were cockatiels I'd get pieds because in cockatiels Pied is Recessive there is no Dominant Pied or Recessive pied there is just Pied and it is Recessive no matter if its Light Pied, heavy pied or Clear Pied (which is similar to the dark eye clear in budgies)

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