Hi,

 

I have never been quite sure of a couple of mutations of my budgerigars. We start with this Albino hen, however she has some brown patterns on her? What is this? I know she is an albino, because her son produced birds that couldn't have been produced without her being this colour, being sex-linked recessive etc etc. I don't know of her parentage.

 

 

She was then paired with a normal cobalt male (unknown parentage) and produced a skyblue, a number of 'greys', cobalts and an oddly dark blue/purple hen.

One of these 'grey' males was paired with a lutino hen; he is pictured here - the brown doesn't have seem to have caught on?

 

 

Where I am extremely confused is here. He produced 3x green spangle (or so I think) chicks in his first clutch. However, given my understanding of how the spangle is inherited (autosomal dominant?), it doesn't make sense that his offspring have this appearance. Am I wrong in assuming that they are spangle? Here is one of them:

 

What do you think he is?

 

In addition, his ('grey') second clutch with the lutino hen consisted of 3x lutino (1x male, 2x female), and 1x albino (female). All females had the same browny-tinge that the original albino hen had, but not the male. Having produced these albino/lutino chicks gives me certainty in that the albino hen is in fact albino, despite her brown (unless of course, my genetics knowledge has failed me!).

 

Thanks for getting through it, I appreciate any feedback!

Your Albino hen is actually a lacewing, this is the cinnamon markings with red eyes and cinnamon tail feathers on her. This would make the grey split lacewing, explaining the lacewing hen babies. Your lutino is split blue series, explaining the white lacewing baby. All the yellow babies from this pair will be split blue series from the cock bird. Ino (weather it be albino or lutino, same gene different colour series) is dominant to lacewing so the lutino cock bird baby will be split for lacewing as well as split blue series. As far as the spangle babies go, were the parent birds in a community aviary with other budgerigars prior to pairing? If so it has been my experience that the hen can be fertilised in the aviary prior to pairing. This would also explain why no spangles appeared in second clutch as they are from second fertilisation by the cock bird in the pairing.

The albino hen is a lacewing. Her son the grey cock is split for lacewing.

 

The lutino that the grey cock was mated to must be masking spangle for the pair to have produced spangle chicks (unless she mated with a different cock). She must also be split for blue.

 

The three red eyed female chicks in the second clutch will be lacewings and the male red eyed chick will be lutino. Because of the sex-linkage the cock can't produce a lacewing male unless he is mated to a lacewing hen but he can produce an ino male when he is mated to an ino hen. Some of the young lacewing hens could also be spangle, if they are their brown markings will be reduced.

 

The expected result from pairing a normal split lacewing cock to an ino hen that is masking spangle would be:

12.5% ino males

12.5% ino males masking spangle

12.5% normal males

12.5% spangle males

12.5% lacewing females

12.5% spangle lacewing females

12.5% normal females

12.5% spangle females

 

Half of the males will be split for lacewing.

The chicks should be about half green series and half blue series (including grey, grey green, white & yellow)

All the green series chicks will be split for blue

Edited August 6, 201212 yr by Neville

Thanks, I appreciate your feedback

 

I am still confused with the spangle. I'd never had any other spangles in the aviary, so it wasn't other birds mating etc etc. But, according to numerous sites, spangle is autosomal dominant, which means it couldn't be "hidden" by another mutation - or is it an exception when it comes to ino birds? Which is the only explanation I can find.

 

Also, to clarify, the lacewing hen. Is she titled "albino lacewing" or just "white lacewing"? Is she still an albino despite the lacewing markings?

 

Thanks again

The ino mutation can mask most other mutation including spangle. When an ino that is masking spangle is bred the spangle gene will be inherited in the same way as it would if the bird was not ino as well, so you will be able to see if the chicks that don't show the ino mutation are spangle or not.

 

Your white hen should be described just as a lacewing. The cinnamon & the ino gene combine to create a lacewing but to produce lacweing chicks her mate also needs to have the combined gene. If your bird is paired with a cinnamon she would produce cinnamon chicks of both sexes or if she was paired with an ino she would produce inos of both sexes