Ring neck breeding

[avinet]

Hi Richard and welcome. Are you in Australia? A clutch of ringneck babies in the autumn is unusual although by no means unheard of. I have a hen at present convinced it is breeding season although her mate has been keeping a better eye on the calender and isn't interested.

To take your pair at face value with no hidden splits, just a grey cock with a lacewing - or pallid to give it the correct name - the first thing to note is that a grey ringneck is actually a combination or a grey-green and a blue mutation with the visible combination of these two colours resulting a a bird that is grey in appearance. And since blue is a recessive gene and grey-green (often called olive) is a dominant gene we are dealing with a bird that has both a dominant and a recessive gene.

The hen in contrast as a pallid has a sex-linked recessive mutation.

You say that the 3 babies appear to be grey - the same colour as their father. Since a grey is a visual grey-green and blue combined, and since blue is recessive, then to get any grey babies that means the hen must be split to blue to enable the babies to have blue in their visual makeup.

So, with a grey cock and a pallid split blue hen the results would be:-
cocks
25.0% grey split pallid
25.0% blue split pallid
25.0% grey-green split blue and pallid
25.0% green split blue and pallid

hens
25.0% grey
25.0% blue
25.0% grey-green split blue
25.0% green split blue

That raises an interesting question - you have 3 out of 3 grey babies and on average only 1 in 4 babies should be grey - a statistical 1 in 64 chance of that happening. It could happen but it is unlikely. That raises the possibility that your cock is a double factor grey - with dominant genes they can be single or double factor with the double factor essentially increasing the chances of it occuring.

With a double factor grey and a pallid the results would be:-

cocks
50.0% grey split pallid
50.0% grey green split blue and pallid

hens
50.0% grey
50.0% grey-green split blue

That gives odd of getting three greys out of 3 babies as 1 in 8 - much more likely.

I guess more breeding will let you know the cock's true genetic makeup - if you get any true blue or green babies then he is a single factor grey-green, but if you get only greys and grey-green then he is a double factor grey-green.

Hope this hasn't confused you more!

cheers,

Mike

[AussieBirds]

Hi Mike, as you know I am new to breeding ring necks and I find your post very informative, I have a white male and a yellow female, not sure if she is a full lutino or she is split I was wondering if you could tell me what colour I can expect from this pairing, I have been told I will get mostly yellow birds, is this right.

John

[avinet]

May 9, 2011 12:55:19 GMT 10 AussieBirds said:

Hi Mike, as you know I am new to breeding ring necks and I find your post very informative, I have a white male and a yellow female, not sure if she is a full lutino or she is split I was wondering if you could tell me what colour I can expect from this pairing, I have been told I will get mostly yellow birds, is this right.

John

Hi John,

As you are probably aware, a green parrot doesn't have a green colouring agent in it's feathers. It is actually a combination of blue and yellow, which by a combination of reflection and refraction in the feathers results in a green colour. Same as mixing yellow and blue paint to get green.

So to get a yellow bird the gene for the blue has to be lost, leaving just the yellow, and similarly to get a blue bird, the yellow gene has to disappear. So if the blue and yellow mutations are present at the same time they are respectively removing yellow and blue from the bird and white is the result.

So an albino is really a blue lutino, and when your albino cock is paired with a lutino hen all the babies will be lutino split to blue since they share the lutino gene and the recessive blue gene from the cock is passed on as a split to all his babies. If you get any other colour then there are splits you don't know about.

For instance, and remembering that the hen cannot be split to any sex-linked gene, by far the most likely split she could have is to blue - the other ringneck recessive genes are very rare. If she is split blue then half the babies will be albino and half will be lutino split blue and they can be of either sex.

cheers,

Mike

[avinet]

can I suggest this thread be moved to the genetics forum? It will be much more useful there for future members

cheers,

Mike

[meandem]

DONE

And yes, the information is very helpful.............and very much appreciated