My four chicks are three pearl and one grey.
Mom is pearl, the two possible dads are grey.
I am trying to understand which one of them has the pearl gene that was passed to the chicks.
Possible father no.1, Yoghi, was a grey split pied. No pearl that I could see.
Possible father no.2, Frank, is a grey and a bit of a mongrel.
After his last molting I have noticed on his back some feathers not completely grey, so I would like your opinion on whether he can have some pearl and be the father. He is almost 2yo.



I have other pictures of his back in this set, if you want to have a look http://www.flickr.com/photos/110204793@N05/sets/72157638926768714/

Frank is my candidate. That looks like ghost pearling to me.

Ghost pearling as in a pearl boy who molted to grey, or ghost pearling as a split?
Also, looking at his face, do you think Frank might be split to WF? And what about those whites on the back of his neck? possible split pied?

I was hoping so much that the dad was Yoghi But he really didnt have any ghost pearling on his back, at all.

The white on the back of his head isn't as large and distinctive as a lot of pied splits. But if it's always there (as opposed to being caused by a molted feather or messed up 'hair') then I'd say he's split pied.

Personally I don't have confidence in the signs of a whiteface split. Except for the ones who are visual whiteface, ALL my birds have the signs. I do know that 4 of them are definitely split, but it seems a little improbable that all of them are. My pearl hen Ladybug has a whiteface mate (Pip) but so far they've had zero whiteface babies. I'm not quite ready yet to declare that she's NOT split whiteface, but if there aren't any WF babies in the next clutch then I'm going to assume that she's not split.

Ghost pearls occur with both visuals and splits, and apparently they appear with the infamous 'spot gene' too. srtiels says that a visual pearl male will always retain some mottling on the upper part of his tailfeathers so you can check for that. You can view her collage at http://s525.photobucket.com/user/Mouseb ... rt=6&o=113 and check out Frankie's tailfeathers.

But also check out the thread at https://www.facebook.com/groups/ICR.uni ... 797401791/ because it seems to me that tailfeathers can be hard to interpret. Pip has grizzled/mottled tailfeathers which is apparently a pied characteristic - he hasn't had any pearl babies. Azazel also has bleached-out looking areas on his tail which change over time, and I don't know what they mean because he hasn't fathered any chicks that I know of.

Edit: wait a second! He has to be split since there was a non-pearl baby. Two visual pearl parents will have all pearl babies. Unless you think there's a chance that the hen mated with both cocks and the grey baby is Yoghi's.

wow I didn't know that the ladies could use sperm from more than one cock within the same clutch! They are so clever!
Yes the white halo around the yellow face seems a bit of an urban legend to me. Of all the pictures of greys I see, 80% have it and that seems an awful high percentage for splits. I know nothing about this stuff but if it was a sure factor we would see so many more whiteface babies from these greys.
Of my boys Bubu and Frank have it, maybe Bubu has a chance of being split wf because I have seen his broher and he is a whiteface Is that possible?).
Frank is such a mystery, it would be interesting to have him mate with one of my other girls and see what happens. I just don't see that happening because all my girls apart from Trilly are in complete hormonal hibernation! That white spot behind his neck has always been there.
He also had brown feathers for about 8 months but I was told that happens when the feathers are old.

A bird with a whiteface brother has a very high probability of being split whiteface. We know that both parents were at least split to whiteface, and if one of them was visual WF then all babies will get the gene from that parent.

Sounds like Frank is split pied.

Each individual chick can have only one father because that's the way nature works, but theoretically every chick in the clutch could have a different father. Ladybug had three mates (Pip, Elvis, and Azazel) for the first two clutches she had with me so my big question for the babies was "who's your daddy?". All I know for sure is that there were no pearl babies and no whiteface. She was faithful to Pip for her last clutch as far as I know, and there were still no pearls and no whiteface. She did produce pied and cinnamon in each clutch.

We don't discriminate against pluckers lol. Has the cause of the plucking ever been determined?

If Drummer is all yellow with no grey at all it's mostly likely that he's a lutino, like Teela and Mims in my signature. But we'll know more when we see the picture.

Yes Jan please let us see both your babies! If you need indications on how to post pics we'll be happy to go through it step by step with you, at least I will.

As for all the mutations, I am a complete n00b but I am timidly starting learning about them. The babies I had were such a surprise (was expecting all normal greys), it made me want to understand a little bit more of it. BUT it's very complicated!
Luckily we have the expert here

You may come to regret having a genetics geek here. I'm going to post a thread soon on hypothetical cockatiel mutations that I think are actually possible.