This bird was sold to me as a DEC, hadn't really read anything about them and wasn't familiar with them so......

I think she's a dilute.

 

 

 

Iris Rings

 

What do you think?

Edited March 23, 201114 yr by Finnie

Hi Linda,

 

Yep...she is a dilute, not a DEC....

 

This is my DEC...

 

 

 

and my dilute...

 

 

Dilute

Dilute.....Here is mine

Edited December 1, 200915 yr by splat

Thought so, figured a DEC would be clear (free from markings).

 

Thinking about culling her so thought I'd find out for sure 1st.

Is it possible you mis-heard? Or maybe the person selling you the bird had a slip of the tongue.

 

The bird is a Dilute to use the correct term. In the show world that is a Black Eye Self. Generally to conform to the show standard the BES is a Cinnamon Dilute.

Some of the educationally challenge (budgie wise) people have been know to use the term DEC in regards these birds.

 

She is a fairly good example of this variety and you can always ship her over here.

Thanks to all for the confirmation.

 

I'd say they were 'challenged'.

 

If she's an okay example as you say then maybe I'll pair her with my Greywing Cock. I think she's a bit overweight at the moment but she gets the same as everyone else so short of exercising her in a wind tunnel I'm not sure what I can do.

Thanks to all for the confirmation.

 

I'd say they were 'challenged'.

 

If she's an okay example as you say then maybe I'll pair her with my Greywing Cock. I think she's a bit overweight at the moment but she gets the same as everyone else so short of exercising her in a wind tunnel I'm not sure what I can do.

 

Pairing to a Greywing may not be the best course of action. If she is a 'true' show standard type Black Eye then she will be a Cinnamon Dilute. Cinnamon is not really the ideal thing to mix with Greywing. Although if you do use her all the young produced will be Greywings unless the Greywing cock is split for Dilute. All hens will be non Cinnamon and all cocks will be split for Cinnamon.

Hmmm... might try the mating and use only the hens for greywings and do a test mating with one of the cocks. Do you think she's good enough to be worth it?

Hmmm... might try the mating and use only the hens for greywings and do a test mating with one of the cocks. Do you think she's good enough to be worth it?

 

She's definitely worth having a play with and I think RIP might think that too given her offer of an interstate holiday for her

Might have to find her a breeding cage then.

 

Figured I'd breed my Greywing cock with a dilute hen and a normal hen and then pair up the offspring from the matings......

 

The other dilute hen I have is opaline and an 09 bird so won't be ready for awhile, seems like I may only be able to keep hens from any Greywing-Dilute mating.

Still this will produce offspring to pair with split greywings.

are Dilutes and fallows the same??

are Dilutes and fallows the same??

NO Fallows have red eyes amongst other differing features.

Edited December 3, 200915 yr by KAZ

She is definitely not a fallow. I would say she is a dilute (grey yellow, whatever...). She looks grey factor on our dodgy computer monitor. She could have been bred from blackeyes and could be classed as a "bad blackeye". They are sort of interchangeable as the genes that control blackeye, dilute, greywing, etc are all at the same locus.

Not sure about the reference to cinnamon in exhibition blackeyes? They are not a composite variety and cinnamon has no place in blackeyes from what I understand. The blackeye breeders I know don't use cinnamons in their blackeyes.

If you think she is good enough to breed with, just pair her to a normal and if the progeny are any good, you will keep them and breed from them and eventually the mutation will show up again. Focus on the bird first and the variety second.

Cheers

PT

ps: Heathrow might have a comment - he is a guru on dilutes and blackeyes!

Been breeding blackeyes for a little bit now and I can say they are definietly a composite of cinnamon and dilute. Cinnamon is used to reduce suffusion in the dilute to make it a black eyed self. Opaline on the other hand is not used as the combination has to be shown in the opaline AOSV.

 

Every backeyed self I have bred to cinnamon (purchased in blackeyes) have bred 100% cinnamon.

 

Your bird looks to be a blackeyed self (I would consider her to be a bit strongly marked for this variety but still quite a nice example). I would have thought she might be a bit more suffused if she were a straight dilute and not a cinnamon dilute (blackeye).

Edited December 3, 200915 yr by nubbly5

Been breeding blackeyes for a little bit now and I can say they are definietly a composite of cinnamon and dilute. Cinnamon is used to reduce suffusion in the dilute to make it a black eyed self. Opaline on the other hand is not used as the combination has to be shown in the opaline AOSV.

 

Every backeyed self I have bred to cinnamon (purchased in blackeyes) have bred 100% cinnamon.

 

Your bird looks to be a blackeyed self (I would consider her to be a bit strongly marked for this variety but still quite a nice example). I would have thought she might be a bit more suffused if she were a straight dilute and not a cinnamon dilute (blackeye).

 

Hi Nubbly,

 

Riddle me this... If blackeyes are cinnamon dilutes, why are they all pissants with narrow heads and no feather? Good cinnamons are as good as any budgie and quality dilutes are not that far behind. If Blackeyes are a combination of these two varieties, then why are they such runts???

There is no doubt that there are blackeyes out there that are carrying/masking cinnamon, but there are plenty of others that aren't, and the true blackeye shouldn't have cinnamon in it. Saying that, you would have to be good to pick a cinnamon dilute or cinnamon blackeye from a "pure" blackeye.

Cheers

PT

They are sort of interchangeable as the genes that control blackeye, dilute, greywing, etc are all at the same locus.

 

 

Chookbreeder, are you saying that there are actually 5, not 4, alleles on this locus? (Normal, greywing, clearwing, dilute, and now this "blackeye")

 

I have never heard it explained that way before.

Hi Nubbly,

 

Riddle me this... If blackeyes are cinnamon dilutes, why are they all pissants with narrow heads and no feather? Good cinnamons are as good as any budgie and quality dilutes are not that far behind. If Blackeyes are a combination of these two varieties, then why are they such runts???

There is no doubt that there are blackeyes out there that are carrying/masking cinnamon, but there are plenty of others that aren't, and the true blackeye shouldn't have cinnamon in it. Saying that, you would have to be good to pick a cinnamon dilute or cinnamon blackeye from a "pure" blackeye.

Cheers

PT

If a blackeye is carrying cinnamon, would the colour of its feet be the tell tale sign......pink feet for instance ?

You hit the nail right on the head,the give away is the pink feet.

They are sort of interchangeable as the genes that control blackeye, dilute, greywing, etc are all at the same locus.

 

 

Chookbreeder, are you saying that there are actually 5, not 4, alleles on this locus? (Normal, greywing, clearwing, dilute, and now this "blackeye")

 

I have never heard it explained that way before.

 

Hi Finnie,

 

Yes I know, the literature only talks about 4 alleles. I am guessing the problem is that there are few australian blackeyes in the northern hemisphere so not a lot of work has been done on them.

 

Cheers

 

PT

Hi Nubbly,

 

Riddle me this... If blackeyes are cinnamon dilutes, why are they all pissants with narrow heads and no feather? Good cinnamons are as good as any budgie and quality dilutes are not that far behind. If Blackeyes are a combination of these two varieties, then why are they such runts???

There is no doubt that there are blackeyes out there that are carrying/masking cinnamon, but there are plenty of others that aren't, and the true blackeye shouldn't have cinnamon in it. Saying that, you would have to be good to pick a cinnamon dilute or cinnamon blackeye from a "pure" blackeye.

Cheers

PT

If a blackeye is carrying cinnamon, would the colour of its feet be the tell tale sign......pink feet for instance ?

 

Hi Kaz,

 

Had a discussion about this with another judge that just happened to ring me last night and we talked about feet colour. The problem with feet colour is it is not a consistent tell tale sign. You can find normals out there with pink feet. The blackeye standard calls for "pinkish, blue grey, mottled". I think the fact that blue grey and mottled feet are acceptable could indicate that that not all blackeyes carry cinnamon and as such gives rise to the possibility of them being a distinct mutation at the greywing/dilute locus. However, we do not know a lot about the inheritance of feet colour.The Dilute standard refers to them as having blue grey, mottled feet, the cinnamon standard says pinkish grey. So maybe the blackeye standard is reflective of them being a combination of the two varieties?

If they were all cinnamon dilutes, then why would breeders waste their time breeding them to normals to produce splits, when there are so many good cinnamons around?

Also, it can't be the case that the cinnamon and dilute genes are in linkage disequilibrium (such is the case with cinnamon opalines and lacewings) because the genes are on different chromosomes.

So while you may be able to produce "synthetic blackeyes" (just as you can produce synthetic lacewings - cinnamon fallows), I also believe that they are a distinct variety. But I am more than happy to be proven wrong.

Cheers

PT

ps: the other judge thought that they were a distinct variety as well.

Been breeding blackeyes for a little bit now and I can say they are definietly a composite of cinnamon and dilute. Cinnamon is used to reduce suffusion in the dilute to make it a black eyed self. Opaline on the other hand is not used as the combination has to be shown in the opaline AOSV.

 

Every backeyed self I have bred to cinnamon (purchased in blackeyes) have bred 100% cinnamon.

 

Your bird looks to be a blackeyed self (I would consider her to be a bit strongly marked for this variety but still quite a nice example). I would have thought she might be a bit more suffused if she were a straight dilute and not a cinnamon dilute (blackeye).

 

Hi Nubbly,

 

Riddle me this... If blackeyes are cinnamon dilutes, why are they all pissants with narrow heads and no feather? Good cinnamons are as good as any budgie and quality dilutes are not that far behind. If Blackeyes are a combination of these two varieties, then why are they such runts???

There is no doubt that there are blackeyes out there that are carrying/masking cinnamon, but there are plenty of others that aren't, and the true blackeye shouldn't have cinnamon in it. Saying that, you would have to be good to pick a cinnamon dilute or cinnamon blackeye from a "pure" blackeye.

Cheers

PT

 

Looking at Peter G's winning blackeye this year I wouldn't say that it was a pissant (but he even admitted himself that it was a bit green ).

 

Talking to all the people that I know who breed standout blackeyes - they ARE cinnamon dilute on the whole and the ones that don't carry cinnamon GENERALLY end up too heavily suffused (these are (non-cinnamon BES') straight dilutes after all just with some selective breeding to reduce suffusion of course). And I would challenge you to find a good coloured blackeye that was not a cinnamon. I think I have ONE in the birds I bought as my starting stock (the only one that looks to have blue feet rather than pink) but I have not test mated it to find out as he is just that - too suffused. And yes these are birds from Nats winning studs - all of whom have told me that breeding top quality BES is about breeding to dark green cinnamons (cinnamon to reduce suffusion and dark factor to increase brightness of the yellow).

 

Just read your last post CB (problem being a slow typer ). Remember I've just started with this variety but I have never been advised by anyone to breed splits using normals - always cinnamon and as I said previously - any splits I have ever bred from purchased in stock have always bred 100% cinnamon. So far for me, it's enough proof that BES ARE in fact just a combination of dilutes and cinnamon - as I said above though, obviously these dilutes have been selctively bred to have less suffusion than your standard dilute.

Edited December 3, 200915 yr by nubbly5

Nubbly,

That may be so, but why are they never as good as a Cinnamon or a Dilute - even the very best of the blackeyes?

Nubbly,

That may be so, but why are they never as good as a Cinnamon or a Dilute - even the very best of the blackeyes?

 

 

Search me CB. Was thinking about this after your post and the best I can come up with is this:

 

Like the clearwing, when you try to improve size and feather you lose wing clarity in a big way and although the BES is a composite of cinnamon and dilute, we are still having to select out those birds with little markings and little suffusion and I think THIS is where we end up losing size and feather. I think if we could just select for the biggest and best examples of the BES we would end up with a bird that maybe was not AS heavily suffused as a dilute but still too heavily suffused for the standard BES but would definitely rival dilutes and cinnamons in size and feather. I just think that the selection pressure is swayed more heavily towards reducing suffusion and markings (the essesnce of a BES I guess).

 

That's my thought on it anyway. Give me a few more years breeding the little suckers and I might have changed that somewhat

She is definitely not a fallow. I would say she is a dilute (grey yellow, whatever...). She looks grey factor on our dodgy computer monitor. She could have been bred from blackeyes and could be classed as a "bad blackeye". They are sort of interchangeable as the genes that control blackeye, dilute, greywing, etc are all at the same locus.

Not sure about the reference to cinnamon in exhibition blackeyes? They are not a composite variety and cinnamon has no place in blackeyes from what I understand. The blackeye breeders I know don't use cinnamons in their blackeyes.

If you think she is good enough to breed with, just pair her to a normal and if the progeny are any good, you will keep them and breed from them and eventually the mutation will show up again. Focus on the bird first and the variety second.

Cheers

PT

ps: Heathrow might have a comment - he is a guru on dilutes and blackeyes!

 

Very Funny Pete - I've breed a couple of Dilutes and never bred a Blackeye.

 

My initial thought on the Photo was Blackeye every day of week, way too much colour for Dilute, in my humble opinion.

 

As for the genetic side - No comment, reading the post of yours and nubbly i have come to realise how little i do know about genetics. But it is interesting question you ask about the size/quality issue of blackeye compared to cinnamon.