Hi,

 

I have produced a baby budgie that is a lot darker than any of its nestmates; it is nothing like any grey budgie I have ever bred; or any budgie at that. Here are some photos:

 

 

 

The grey body feathers appear to be the same shade of grey as its two younger siblings and every other grey budgie I have had (pretty sure). For comparison, here are photos of two of its nestmates, showing how different its head is from a normal pattern and an opaline pattern.

 

 

 

I thought it was an opaline chick when it was younger as it’s down feathers were while like it’s skyblue opaline nestmate, and now its younger grey opaline nestmate. But now, it’s body feathers look like opaline (grey on wings), but it’s head does not.

 

 

Any ideas why it is like this?? I really like the looks of this baby, but I am just a bit confused.

 

FYI, their parents are Grey Opaline Hen and Skyblue Greying split Opaline Male, and their clutch produced 1x skyblue, 1x skyblue opaline, this weird chick grey, 1x grey opaline and 1x grey.

 

Mikayla

May be Df Grey. The dark cere is interesting. Poss on the way to anthracite but just a guess.

Do you know the parents linage?

 

Would be interesting to see that this one produces down the line

Hi, thanks for your reply. Am I correct in saying it couldn't be DF grey as one parent was skyblue? The parents' lineages I have no idea - bought both birds from different breeders at a sale in August. None of their other birds on sale had any of these unusual patterns. I have noticed on this bird that the stripes go right down to where the black cheek spots are, and onto the grey feathers. Also, on the grey rump area, there's also some very light barring (whether this is just the way the feathers are sitting, I am not sure, but I don't think that is the case - I don't observe these stripes on any of its other siblings/budgies I own. I think it is a female, but with that black cere, it is very hard to tell. Here are some more photos of its feathers aroundits cheek and chest - haven't been able to get a good shot of the rump feathers.

I have bred a chick like this one. The large amount of black on the face is caused by melanin. It will probably moult out.

he is soo cute!

the first I thought of was melanin,

some chicks are born like this (I have not seen this much before though) but it will molt away when older.

"It" is very nice anyway, more pics as it moults out would be interesting, to see if it does lighten up or darken even more. It's always good to see something a little "off centre" to see which way it turns out.

Here are some photos from today:

Just popped in to-day by chance. Your chick is lovely, very nice grey by the look of him. His beak has lightened up to normal I see. Really nice.