colour confusion

[jusdeb]

Hi all , I bought a pair of Opaline Lutino Red Rumps recently and am confused about how the colours work .

is it a sex thing and the males will have the bold colours while the female appears to be Lutino with a red rump ?

Also are all yellow Red Rumps Lutino or is it just the ones with red eyes ?

If so what are the other dark eyed Yellows ?

Bit confused by it all .

[jusdeb]

Ooops forgot the photo.

[avinet]

The male with the green colours looks visually like an Opaline, and is not an Opaline Lutino. It may be split lutino but is visually only an opaline. A visual opaline lutino would only have yellow and red colours.

The hen is either a Lutino if it has a red eye or a Black-eyed clear if it has black eyes. A Black-eyed Clear is a recessive gene and is often called Australian Dominant Pied.

Both opaline and Lutino are sex-linked and Black-eyed Clear is recessive.

For breeding results, all the sons will be normals, split either to Opaline if the mother is a lutino or Black-eyed Clear and Opaline if the hen is a Black-eyed Clear.

The daughters will all be Opaline, and split to Black-eyed Clear if their mother is a Black-eyed Clear. If she is a Lutino the daughters will have no splits.

If you know they have splits I can work out the breeding results taking the splits into account.

cheers,

Mike

[jusdeb]

No I dont know the history of them sadly but the girl has red eyes if that helps.

[avinet]

With red eyes she is a lutino

cheers,

Mike

[Laraine]

That is all very confusing. I have both those coloured birds although the male Opaline hasn't bred yet. What would I get if he bred with a green (not normal) female?

[avinet]

May 23, 2011 8:41:22 GMT 10 Laraine said:

That is all very confusing. I have both those coloured birds although the male Opaline hasn't bred yet. What would I get if he bred with a green (not normal) female?

Sorry for the confusion Laraine - might not have been my best explanation of genetics!

There is no problem with the male that jusdeb has - it is clearly an opaline.

The female is basically a yellow bird, and there are two mutations in Red-rumps that can produce a yellow bird. either the sex-linked Lutino or the recessive Black-eyed Clear - also called the Australian Dominant pied, a bad name since it implies a dominant gene when in fact it is recessive.

The difference between the two is the eye colour - a lutino has a red eye while the Black-eye Clear has, as one would expect, a black eye.

When either of these types of hens are combined with an Opaline cock, the colours produced in the nest are the same. The sons will be normals and the daughters will be opaline. All that differs is the splits they will carry, as detailed in my previous post.

With your Opaline cock bird paired with a green hen I am not sure what you mean by green (not normal) female. If she is the green colour of the wild Red-rumps then she is a normal. If she is a different colour to a wild type bird then what sort of green is she? She could be perhaps Cinnamon - a light greenish colour, or perhaps a darker green - an olive (more properly called Grey-green).

If she is either Normal or Cinnamon then the breeding results will be hens all Opaline and cocks all Normal. If she is a Grey-green then the cocks will be half normal and half Grey-green and the hens will be half Opaline and half Grey-green Opaline.

cheers,

Mike

[jusdeb]

Thanks for the info ...I think I get it now . So how do I get the Opaline in males or can I get it from these 2.

[avinet]

To get an Opaline male you need a hen that is a visual opaline and a cock that is either an opaline or is split to opaline. Two opalines will give you all opaline babies, while a split opaline male will give you 50% opaline and 50% normals of either sex.

So since you have a nice opaline male you need to source an opaline female.

cheers,

Mike

[jusdeb]

Thanks Mike