What's the right age to DNA sex a lorikeet?

[Jack]

What is the right age to 'pluck' a feather from a baby rainbow lorikeet?
Where is the best place to pluck it from?
How do I go about doing it?

Thanks.

[avinet]

Any age is OK - the blood on the inside of the egg shell can even be used.

The aim of plucking a feather is to get some DNA from the cells of skin or dried blood around the base of the feather. My preferred method is to get a blood sample by pricking the fleshy part of a toe just above the claw with a sterilized needle to get a drop of blood onto a collecting paper. if you prefer to pluck instead, then I would pull a couple of blood feathers from the back of the bird. Doesn't really matter where the feathers come form but the back seems less sensitive to pain.

cheers,

Mike

[Jack]

When you say any age, do you mean once they have fully feathered or once they have back feathers?
I'm handrearing a couple at the moment and was just wondering when to get them sexed.
Thanks

[avinet]

Jul 15, 2012 18:43:33 GMT 10 Jack said:

When you say any age, do you mean once they have fully feathered or once they have back feathers?
I'm handrearing a couple at the moment and was just wondering when to get them sexed.
Thanks

Any age from hatch to death!!! All you need is a bit of blood that can be used to extract DNA. As I said before, my preferred method is to get a drop of blood by pricking the bird's toe just above the claw. That drop of blood is then soaked up with a collection paper (like blotting paper) and sent into the lab - this is the method that MDS use for instance.

Some breeders I've known would send in the egg shell after incubator hatching so that DNA could be taken from the inside of the egg for sexing. It had to be incubator hatching to avoid nest box contamination form the mother.

Some labs will take feathers, and extract DNA from the dried blood cells that are in the shaft of the feather, or by the fresh blood in a blood feather. My experience is that results are unreliable from an older dry feather (quite often they couldn't get a result and re-submitting of samples was needed) and are much more reliable from a blood feather with flesh blood. They are most reliable from a drop of blood from the toe. I did some testing of labs a few years ago - with old feathers the results were better than guessing but not markedly so. Blood feathers were better but not perfect, while toe samples were almost always correct - although one lab seemed to get it wrong quite often - I haven't seen them advertising recently so perhaps their poor record has caught up with them!

If you are relying on feathers to provide a sample then it doesn't matter how old the bird is as long as there is a blood feather to collect. With a baby bird it is easiest to see a blood feather on the back when they are young with pin feathers opening out and some blood still visible in the shaft of the feather. If I was sexing a mature bird then it is easier to see a blood feather in the tail than on the back and so I would sample a tail feather but that is more painful for the bird, and a toe prick is far less painful - partly why I prefer to collect from the toe.

cheers,

Mike

[Jack]

Thanks for clearing that up Mike, just wasn't sure if you could pluck a pin feather. What company do you reccomend that does DNA testing where you can send in blood from the toe?

[Jack]

I think I'll use DNA solutions.