i wood love to breed one

 

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Edited January 2, 200916 yr by Daz

I have no idea how to breed black budgies, but hopefully someone will know how to one day on here.

Edited January 1, 200916 yr by KAZ

Do you mean anthracite? or blackface.

Do you mean anthracite? or blackface.

 

I have not heard of anyone breeding a black budgerigar - but it could be a challenge for someone by selectively breeding birds carrying more and more black in the markings and watch out for mutations with misplaced black markings in the body feather and working it up from there. I don't think it likely that a completely black budgerigar will just spring up from nowhere. Varieties today have sprung from mutations which have been spotted by someone who has then worked with the material they have to produce what we have today. Goodness knows how many new mutations have appeared, but not been seen by someone who knows what to do with them. In the wild, mutations tend to be counter-survival so they don't reproduce, or if the mutation is recessive there are insufficient numbers to counter the mass-attrition which affects wild flocks.

I read up on this a while ago. Apparently they bread some really dark grey budgies in Germany that they called black budgies or anthracites a while a go, but they died out.

 

They looked like this:

 

 

or there was another mutation in the Netherlands that looked like this where the stripes on the back of the neck continued to the front and down the body.

 

Edited December 31, 200816 yr by Hills

I read up on this a while ago. Apparently they bread some really dark grey budgies in Germany that they called black budgies or anthracites a while a go, but they died out.

 

They looked like this:

 

 

or there was another mutation in the Netherlands that looked like this where the stripes on the back of the neck continued to the front and down the body.

 

Anthracites have NOT died out and are still being bred

okay how wood u you breed 1 one but

 

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Edited January 2, 200916 yr by Daz

Those occured as a lucky pairingof two birds that happened to carry it, you can't just pick birds from your aviary and breed them.

Anthracites have NOT died out and are still being bred

 

Oh, okay thanks Kaz. Are they all almost black like that or does anthracite include other shades or colours?

Anthracites have NOT died out and are still being bred

 

Oh, okay thanks Kaz. Are they all almost black like that or does anthracite include other shades or colours?

Anthracite is as you see it in that photo........the darkest shade of grey. Very cool

We have an article by Stephen Fowler on here on the feather duster....he breeds anthracites and is writing an article on anthracites as we speak.

These two mutations are very rare mutations, you would have to obtain them first in order to breed them.

To breed your own black budgie you just have to be very lucky and hope that a gene in one of your birds mutates while it is still a zygote, or mutates in the gametes of an adult bird. And then if you were lucky enough for this to happen you would have to very selectively breed your birds to produce a black spot or darker pigment and this can only occur if the gene gets passed on in the first place. It is possible for a bird to carry a gene but never pass it on, just because of the gamble in the process of meiosis.

 

YOu could try and slectively breed darker and darker birds, but really you need a new mutation to occur.

Looking forward to reading the article Kaz. it would be an interesting read.

I read up on this a while ago. Apparently they bread some really dark grey budgies in Germany that they called black budgies or anthracites a while a go, but they died out.

 

They looked like this:

 

 

or there was another mutation in the Netherlands that looked like this where the stripes on the back of the neck continued to the front and down the body.

 

 

Hello I,m new on this site,not a breeder but interested in getting back into it after ....many years. I too have had a hankering to look into attempts to breed black budgerigars. I have heard of this type you have shown, though not the striped one, any idea what this striped bird is called?

that budgerigar is a black face.

http://www.budgieplace.com/c_blackface.html

I've been thinking lately that since the black faced budgie was created from a bird that had a little of the black marking extending onto it's mask and was selectively bred to make this 'defect' more apparent until it eventually become like the above picture that maybe flecking could be used in a similar way? Maybe, it is black markings on parts that are usually meant to yellow/white? But I really don't know much about this kind of stuff, it may be a interesting experiment though....... Dark greys with heavy flecking...... bred into black capped birds, maybe they'll even go dalmation or leopard depending on if they're white/yellow :offtopic:

Edited April 20, 200916 yr by Linda_S

Dulux sell it in spray cans. That's about as close as you are gonna get in Australia.

 

hahaha spray painted budgies! :thumbs_up:

:thumbs_up:

 

My hubby makes that at work, so I could make a whole flock of black budgies :hooray: .

Edited April 20, 200916 yr by Munchie's Mum

:thumbs_up: wouldnt it be nice if it were that easy!

okay... a serious answer...

 

To create as black a budgie as possible here are the ingredients, you will need them all in the one bird:

 

heavy flecking

blue series

black normal eumelanin pigmentation

grey factor x 2

violet factor x 2

dark factor x 2

 

Selective pairing to produce heavily flecked mauve violet deep grey normals will produce some very dark birds.

Enjoy.

How do you mix all those colour together Dr Nat? Perhaps put them in a mixing bowl?

 

Seriously though, what pairs do you start with?

Nope, not a mixing bowl, a nest box.

 

Pick two pairs of birds from your aviary that exhibit the most of those characteristics and darkness or depth of colour aforementioned, and breed them together.

 

(for example: a violet-mauve normal x dark grey normal, or a mauve normal x violet-grey normal, both heavily flecked if possible)

 

Select the darkest looking offspring from each nest and pair them up.

 

Successively pair their darkest offspring with their darkest cousins, and so on.

You can also pair back to aunts, uncles and grandparents to enhance certain features if needed - such as excessive black flecking.

 

If you need to outcross the line, find the darkest unrelated or distantly related bird you have to use as an outcross.

 

There are some very dark and heavily flecked opalines getting around that look almost like normals.

They are good to use for this type of project as well.

Edited April 21, 200916 yr by DrNat

why blue blues only?? you can have 2x of all in the green line as well and all we know could help with the darkening of the head feathers.

 

i can see the logic behind using the blue line as darkening of grey gives black but have the yellow mixed in with the heavy flecking could darken the head feathers better. we don't know for sure.

I would think if a black budgie,could of been bred it would of happened by now.

There ate some very cleaver breeders in the budgie world,& they havnt come up with

one,there has been some badly marked & heavy flecked birds.But not black by a

long way.

why blue blues only?? you can have 2x of all in the green line as well and all we know could help with the darkening of the head feathers.

 

i can see the logic behind using the blue line as darkening of grey gives black but have the yellow mixed in with the heavy flecking could darken the head feathers better. we don't know for sure.

 

Using blue series eliminates yellow psittacin pigment.

 

You could use violet olives with dark flecking, but you would have the green colour from the overlay of yellow psittacin on body eumelanin. Unless they were both split blue and you produced a blue series chick from the pair.

 

To create as black a budgie as possible, selectively breed the darkest most heavily marked birds you have.

 

You can only know if you give it a go.