does someone know of an article or post on how to identify colors/mutations in young chicks from pin feather age and before fully feathered? I thought I'd seen one once but now I can't find it. I'd like to see what to look for when seeing a pre-fullly feathered chick and know it's mutations/colors. If anyone can help that would be great! If not, maybe someone can write a how to?

That sounds pretty complicated to me…there are so many colours & mutations; I think you will just have to wait for your experience to develop. You can put pictures on here & others can help you that way.

I agree with Norm, also knowing the parents and what the possibilites are really helps

I'd have to agree also, knowing the parents and being able to identify visual charateristics in the pin feathered chicks from experience is the best way.... i think it'd be to hard to put pen to paper, explain it all and understand that way... but there's always posting pics like said... that helped me to start to identify it all also

You can get a program that will tell you the outcome of the chicks when you pair certain varieties together , but unless you know a detailed history of your birds it would be useless as with budgies some genes just pop up when lest expected , I would look for more experience in genetics and use this with experience to help you learn more about predicting your outcomes .

Sometimes its better to be suprised by what comes out .

Happy breeding

I already have been watching other's examples in identifying.. and I'm familiar with the genetic predictions.. that's not my issue... I'm just curious the more simple factors such as... opaline or not, spangle or not... as I know the down feather color and tail feather colors tell you these things. I was hopeing someone would have these already known.

I already have been watching other's examples in identifying.. and I'm familiar with the genetic predictions.. that's not my issue... I'm just curious the more simple factors such as... opaline or not, spangle or not... as I know the down feather color and tail feather colors tell you these things. I was hopeing someone would have these already known.

I know how to recognise these things in a nest and certain types of chicks coming through. Just not sure I have the photos or way of showing anyone else

My PC has crashed so I currently cannot access all my old photos.

I am learning but it is hard with some varieties

Opaline at the top of the picture and normal at the bottom.

 

But pieds can look like Opalines when young

Edited December 14, 200717 yr by Nerwen

good to see the club rings on :fear

 

More trophies your way Nerwen

Edited December 15, 200717 yr by Daz

 

Sorry Daz, that shot is of the last clutch last year the rings are blue, and are split ones.

Young opalines seem to have a white down on them, while normals are more of a grey.

Once the pin feathers start to come through normals have the black pins show while spangles or greywings etc pins are a lot lighter.

Pieds tend to have irregular black patches on the skin (feathers coming thorugh) of the wings at a certain age but before they feather.

Cinnamons or Recessive pieds eyes are a dark purple colour instead of black, Ino's are red but they are obvious!!. You can see this from time of hatching.

Cant think of much else at this point

 

Sorry Daz, that shot is of the last clutch last year the rings are blue, and are split ones.

 

rats.... Well I hope the new chicks will be of this quality or better. :rip:

The two middle tail feathers of spangles will be white or yellow rather than black or blue

So you can see that in the pin feathers

Edited December 18, 200717 yr by Sailorwolf

thank you all that is the info I was looking for! This helps alot.

The two middle tail feathers of spangles will be white or yellow rather than black or blue

So you can see that in the pin feathers

This is correct and a way to work out spangles ( although a parent has to be a spangle too of course )....but just to add to what Sailorwolf has stated...the middle two tail pins at the stage when you are looking at pin feathers...wont show colour till later on. You will see that the two middle tail pin feathers are clear anyway and the colour comes in later

Edited December 19, 200717 yr by KAZ