Confused By Colour

[Em]

About a month or so ago I picked up my first three ring necks for hand raising. They're all basically fully feathered now save for the youngest who's still a bit patchy- and he's baffling me with his colouring.

When I picked him up he had yellow pin bits and red eyes; his parents have thrown lutinos before and his breeder told me that's what he'd probably be. Now he's feathered up his eyes have gone darker- but they still seem to have a bit of a different tinge than the other two babies who are blue and green- and although he's predominately yellow, he has these green feathers in his tail and almost a green tinged stripe of feathers down his back.

Since I haven't had ring necks before and the amount of information about different colours and mutations and everything sent my brain into meltdown, I was wondering if anyone had any insight into this: is he a lutino and the green's normal; is he a lutino with a bit of extra green that's just cropped up; is he something else entirely?

Not sure if the photos will be of any great help, but there're are some recent photos on my site as well as some from when he was younger if I've just confused anyone with my babbling

[avinet]

From the photos on your web site - sunnysideupbirds.weebly.com/available-soon.html - it looks like a cinnamon. And given the colour of the siblings it is going to be a female since I assume the mother isn't a cinnamon, the cinnamon is a sex-linked gene, and the father therefore must be split to cinnamon.

Cinnamons have a darker red eye than a lutino - more a plum colour - which tends to darken as they get older. In adults you often have to shine a light into it to see the colour properly, or take a flash photo looking at the side of the head.

Post us some new photos in a weeks time, when it will be well feathered, and I will be able to confirm that it is a cinnamon.

cheers,

Mike

[Em]

Oooh- sounds interesting

I'll definitely post some more photos once he's got the rest of his feathers in.

I actually had them DNA sexed and got the results back today: this one is a male along with the blue. The green's the only female out of that clutch.

[avinet]

If that baby is a male then it may not be a cinnamon - can you let us know what colour the parents are?

Either that or the sexing is wrong. I once sent in 10 samples of known sex adult birds and only 7 were correctly sexed!

cheers,

Mike

[Em]

I'm trying to remember the parents' colour- I had a ridiculous number of people ring up offering to sell me baby birds to hand raise and they kind of all blended into one.

Agh... I did have it written down somewhere but no doubt tidied it into a bin ages ago.

For some reason I'm thinking one of them was grey? Maybe.

Actually: FOUND IT Yay for being a hoarder of notes.

So the female is a green/grey pastel- I have both written down, one in parenthesis, not sure why. Maybe the guy mentioned both or he thought she was a bit in between? And the male is a lutino.

He told me they'd thrown greys and lutinos for their past clutches, so I was super surprised to find the blue and green in there.

[Robyn]

I thought it was a Pallid Ino from memory. That's why there is an overlay of green. Once matured that bird would look beautiful. That's one of the few IRN mutations i really like. I used to H/R heaps of IRN for a breeder. One of the reasons i refuse to keep them.

[avinet]

I agree with Robyn, the baby does look like a pallid (or green lacewing). See the photo at www.featheredexotics.com/green%20split%20to%20blue%20lacewing%20x%20green%20lacewing.jpg for an indication of a green lacewing. Those two are not great looking birds - likely in a moult - but you get the idea of the adult colour.

Now I'm confused - assuming the sexing is accurate - always a question mark - and the green is a female and the other two are males, there is no way I can get a combination like that from a lutino father and a green or grey mother.

A lutino father will always have daughters that are lutino or a combination of lutino with another colour - NEVER a green. Also getting a pallid with a normal green and a blue also seems to be impossible from my calculations of the genetics.

So my guess is they cam from different parents and the pallid is not a sibling of the blue and the green. I would love to see photos of the supposed parents!!!!

Whatever - it doesn't really matter - you have a nice green, and a blue and a pallid - a nice mix of colours

cheers,

Mike

[madaussie]

yes irn i just love em ony 6 left now for yhis year 3 greens weaning 2 blue 1 white 2 weeks old .
jjjj

[Em]

Maybe I got my notes mixed up and the parents weren't those colours- I might hoard notes but doesn't mean they're the most organised I wish I had a better memory. I think there was just the one pair of IRNs in there that were their parents and they were all in the same nest box so when I got such a mixed bucket I was pretty surprised, especially since the breeder was so certain that he was selling me a lutino and two greys.

I don't even want to consider the possibility that the sexing is wrong- just gives my dad even more fuel for his "I bet they just have someone in a room who goes this one male, this one female, this one male, this one female" for the tests I send off, haha Good thing they're all aimed to go to pet homes where no one's interested in breeding them so it's not a huge issue if there was something a bit whacky going on with it.

So he's probably a pallid; awesome, thanks for that help Bird genetics makes my mind boggle.