Hi everyone,

I haven't been on in a while. I have been breeding budgies for about 2 1/2 to 3 years now. I have Green, Blue and Recessive Pied sky blues. I have one albino female but that was the only rare mutation I have, she isn't breeding at this time either cuz I am not sure what I want to breed her with. Back in the winter I decided to add a few yellows to my flock. 3 recessive pied yellow and green males and 1 dominant pied female yellow and green. My first dominant pied. Well I since paired her with one of my first offspring I ever hatched. His name is Huey, he is my first pair evers offspring, Booger whom just passed away, and Mama tweet. Just to give a little backround on the mutations, Booger is a normal Green parakeet, Mama Tweet is an opaline sky blue normal, all of their offspring for 3 seasons have been Normal Greens, Opaline Normal greens and a Few normal dark factor greens. No blues what so ever. Huey looks just like his dad, He is a normal bright green Parakeet. Here are a few pics of him, I just took the other day.

The next few pictures of the dominant pied female he is paired with

Well I have no backround on parents for the female but I have a question about their first baby. They have just became parents for the first time a few weeks ago. They had a clutch of 5 eggs but only 1 hatched. They have one little chick. I figured it was going to be green. All of Huey's sisters whom have bred have only bred out green chicks. So the other day I was really looking at this new chick and noticed something strange. She was looking to be getting white feathers. So the next few days went by and sure enough she was getting white feathers with little black markings. I have gotten many recessive pied blue babies and that is what this chick looked like it was going to be. Then a day later I noticed the chick was getting some sky blue feathers and looked exactly like a recessive pied sky blue chick. Totally didn't expect that. To my surprise, I wasn't expecting blue!!! This is what the chick looked like a couple days ago.

I figured I have a recessive pied sky blue out of these 2 parents. But then I took the chick out today and I noticed all of the black spots you see in the pictures above, have disappeared. And the chest and body are covered in very light blue and white feathers. The top of the head has tiny light blue to light grey spots on it. I am just amazed that this bird is not green. The green gene runs deep in that family!!

My question is....Where in the world did this little baby come from?????? Can green mutations with this strong of green genes make blue babies like this all the time or is this chick just a rare exception??? Is this because of Huey's mother???

Thanks for listening to my ramble!!

Hello JustBeaky, Both parents are split blue. If the chick is in fact a recessive pied, that would indicate both parents are also split recessive pied. If it turns out to be dominant pied then it has come from the mother. Hope this helps.

I don't think it is going to be recessive pied. I know def that Huey is split for blue. Just surprised he would have a blue baby with such strong green genes in the family, but obviously it happens.

Here are pictures I just took of the chick today.

You can see here how the dark spots turned light blue or grey stripes

you see how it has blue pin feathers and white scattered

The Bird is getting more blue on it's body.

What a delightful surprise.......an opaline greywing dominant pied and a little female too

 

 

 

and Please can you post a photo of the back of MUM ?

Edited July 25, 201212 yr by **KAZ**

What a delightful surprise.......an opaline greywing dominant pied and a little female too

 

 

 

and Please can you post a photo of the back of MUM ?

Sure I just took a few. I will upload them and then post em up. Got some updated pictures of baby too!!!

Thanks for your reply

Jaime

This is the back of the mama

And here are some updated pics of the little baby. I just took them a few minutes ago. I took some with flash and then some in the sunlight to try and capture her true colors.

 

Not that I am trying to rush things, but when she gets older. What type of mutations do you think I should breed her with, and can you post pictures of those types of mutations? Also, do you think Huey and her Mother will ever produce another chick like her?? Or was she just a fluke?? I guess I am just still surprised this bird didn't come out green. After being in my bird room for a few hours all I see is green offspring....LOL. It is a good thing one of my fav colors is green. I have gotten blues and recessive pied sky blues as well, but in that family, I figured blue was out of the question.....LOL

Thanks Again!!

Jaime

I guess it goes without saying, that both parents are split to greywing, as well as blue!

 

Your chick isn't a fluke. Genetics is all a matter of percentages. Depending on what the father brings to the party, and what the mother brings, for every trait, the offspring will get one gene from each parent. And each parent has two genes to offer, so it's a 50/50 chance which one they will give to the baby.

 

So taking the green color, for example, Huey has one green gene, and one blue gene. We know he got the green one from his father and the blue one from his mother. Now when he gives a gene to his children, it can be either one. This chick happened to get the blue one. If Huey goes on to have 100 more children (lol, not likely!), you could expect 50 of them to get his green, and 50 to get his blue. But it's very random, like rolling dice, so it wouldn't really end up 50 of each.

 

Then this chick's mother gave it a blue gene, as well, so now that tells you that she has one green gene, and one blue gene, just like Huey. If you keep breeding this same pair, the percentages will work out to be 25% of chicks get a green gene from each parent (they have two green genes), 50% will get one green gene and one blue gene (you won't see the blue, it's recessive, so far, all green colored chicks), and 25% will get two blue genes. It's this last category that your baby falls into.

 

You can do the same thing with the greywing gene. As you learn more about budgie genetics, you can figure out the other genes as well, like the dominant pied, and the spangle genes. (I think your hen here looks like she's spangle.) There's also opaline in the mix, and that's a little more complicated, because it is a sex-linked gene.

 

With this pair, a chick has a 25% chance of being blue, and a 25% chance of being greywing. Multiply those together to get his chance of being both, and that is 6.25%. If you figure out all the possibilities that these two parents can make, there are a lot of different combinations. So the percent chance of any particular combination is pretty small. I wouldn't say he's a fluke, but rather a lucky roll of the dice.

 

(Man, sorry this got so long. I'm this close to deleting the whole thing and replacing it with: Wow, what a cute chick!)

Oh No, I am really glad you didn't delete that post. It helped alot. Thanks so much!!!

wow Jaime, that is one gorgeous chick, love her colours (in that one piccie I could have sworn the cere looks boyish lol) Awesome when you get surprise like that :-D

I have had that in the past with my cockatiels :-)

 

By the way, your name is lovely :-D (my daughter's name is the same but with double E)

wow Jaime, that is one gorgeous chick, love her colours (in that one piccie I could have sworn the cere looks boyish lol) Awesome when you get surprise like that :-D

I have had that in the past with my cockatiels :-)

 

By the way, your name is lovely :-D (my daughter's name is the same but with double E)

Thank You!!

Well you know, She is starting to look like a HE to me. I just took the chick out today, which is looking very pretty. I looked at the cere and it looks really male to me. Hmmmm....another mystery. LOL

Wow finnie explained that great, if you know whether your budgie is split green and blue or just green you can use punnet squares, this is a very simple method as the are lots of genes affecting shades and whether it is clearwing, cinnamonwing and others. But here is a simple thing u can do to predict the offspring if you know whether or not they are split for blue.

 

If G is green and b is blue

 

And for example mother and father are split for blue i.e. Gb then it would look like this

 

 

G b

 

G GG Gb

 

 

b Gb bb

 

 

There for 25% will be GG or green budgies not split for blue

 

There will be 50% Gb, or Green budgies split for blue

 

And 25% bb, blue budgies.

 

 

Hope this method will help u to be able to predict future offspring if you know some of their characteristics.

Edited July 31, 201212 yr by Pride

Wow finnie explained that great, if you know whether your budgie is split green and blue or just green you can use punnet squares, this is a very simple method as the are lots of genes affecting shades and whether it is clearwing, cinnamonwing and others. But here is a simple thing u can do to predict the offspring if you know whether or not they are split for blue.

 

If G is green and b is blue

 

And for example mother and father are split for blue i.e. Gb then it would look like this

 

 

G b

 

G GG Gb

 

 

b Gb bb

 

 

There for 25% will be GG or green budgies not split for blue

 

There will be 50% Gb, or Green budgies split for blue

 

And 25% bb, blue budgies.

 

 

Hope this method will help u to be able to predict future offspring if you know some of their characteristics.

Cool, Thanks!!

I have another surprise bird hatched by Huey's younger sister. I am pretty excited about this!!!!