Can anyone tell me what they suspect the sex of this budgie to be? I'll call her a girl, because

genetically she is a red eyed lacewing, which came from the nest of 2 opaline normal blue parents,

so from all accounts she would have to have inherited the lacewing from a split lacewing father. She

is quite pally with one of my young cock birds, as though they have an aviary romance going on, but

from all that I can see from her cere she looks to be a boy. I have heard that lacewings mature at a

slower rate than other varieties so maybe that has something to do with it, the pictures are of her at 3

months old, at that age you usually can get a good guide to what sex a young bird is, but this one has

me wondering still.

Edited January 23, 201411 yr by trefto

Hi Trefto,

 

Very nice looking bird, has some strong wing markings for a 3 month old lacewing. From the pictures provided you would almost say 100% male but if it was bred from 2 normals it would have to be female.

 

I have bred a few lacewings recently and have about 8 currently, from what I've noticed with my lacewings is that the cheek patches are brown but your bird appears to be blue. Not sure if it's form my monitor but it appears blue.

Hi Budgie lover, yes my lacewing definately has violet cheek patches, not sure what the norm is or the standard expectation there.

 

Its funny also because I don't even know how my lacewings father could have been split for lacewing, because both his parents were non lacewing, just a normal opaline blue hen mother and a dominant pied violet opaline cock father, and from aproximately 4 clutches total 15 chicks they have never thrown a lacewing, and yet the dominant pied violet opaline cock would have to have been split lacewing to pass the gene onto my lacewings father, and yet from 15 chicks he's never proved it. bit of a mystery to me.

 

Here is a photo of the same chick at 1 month old

 

 

and at 3 weeks old, she was very heavily marked.

 

Edited January 23, 201411 yr by trefto

I had a closer look at my lacewings and instead of brown cheek patches they have pale violet. Not as strong as the cheek patches of yours.

Yeah I think pale violet might be the normal, but did notice this fella of mine his cheek patches darkened significantly as he got older.

He is a cinnamon fallow

Nah I dont think its a Fallow, as it has no body color its just white and every visual appearance points to it being a heavily marked lacewing,

I assume you are cage breeding and not colony breeding? Because every one of those photos says "male" to me, sorry.

lacewing rant

 

Finnie, to get a visual cock bird lacewing in my aviary, I would have to have had either a pairing of a

visual lacewing cock bird to a visual lacewing hen bird, or a normal split lacewing cock bird to a

visual lacewing hen bird, since my lacewings parents were an opaline sky pied cock and a df violet

sky opaline hen, then I really don't see how genetically this bird could be a cock bird, I can only

conclude that the cock bird parent sky blue opaline pied is split for lacewing. I have one other visual

lacewing in the aviary and that is a yellow lacewing hen bird. I don't see much likelyhood of the yellow lacewing

mating with a split lacewing cock and laying eggs in anothers nest box, my df violet sky opaline hen's nest box, the nest

the lacewings came from, and then obsconding. And this has happened twice now, with a visual white lacewing showing up

in two seperate clutches of the blue opaline pair mentioned above. So theoretically I still expect this could be a girl.

 

The possible pairings with this variety when paired to non-lacewings (let us use the word "normal" for

simplicity) are:

1) Lacewing cock x Lacewing Hen = 50% Lacewing cocks and 50% Lacewing hens

2) Lacewing cock x normal hen = 50% normal/Lacewing cocks and 50% Lacewing hens

3) Normal cock x Lacewing hen = 50% normal/Lacewing cocks and 50% normal hens

4) Normal/Lwing cock x Lwing hen = 25% Lacewing cocks, 25% normal/Lacewing cocks, 25%

Lacewing hens and 25% normal hens

5) Normal/Lwing cock x normal hen = 25% normal cocks, 25% normal/Lacewing cocks, 25%

Lacewing hens and 25% normal hens

Edited January 26, 201411 yr by trefto

100% cock bird. A hen at this age would have a white,blue or brown cere. Cinnamon fallows are almost identical to lacewings. The cinnamon takes away the body colour.

Rachelm, for it to be a cinnamon male, it would still have to have a cinnamon mother. But the fallow gene is non-sex linked, right? So there is the possibility of it being hidden in both parents.

 

I don't see much likelihood of the yellow lacewing

mating with a split lacewing cock and laying eggs in anothers nest box, my df violet sky opaline hen's nest box, the nest

the lacewings came from, and then obsconding.

 

I agree with you, this does seem highly unlikely.

Yeah personally I think it looks like a boy, judging from its cere color. but its got me beat on how it could be, because of the pair it came from and the genetic implications of sex linkage. but then if it were a fallow that could be a possibility passed down from both parents, but I also believe its actually a lacewing, so I'm totally confused how it gets to be a boy based on the lacewing inheritance factor. Maybe it is a fallow like rachel says. Whatever, it is a lovely bird, and maybe through breeding I can determine better what it actually is. we'll just have to wait and see.