Alright, so I've been going over a lot of stuff from Suzanne. Can you guys put up some pictures of your tiels, please only tiels, so I can try to identify mutation and splits?

Here are some of mine. BTW Susanne's split indicators are iffy - other highly experienced breeders don't agree with them.

Pip


Elvis


Azazel


A top shot of all three of them

Ladybug


Teela


Closeups of their faces





I have a pretty good idea of what genes most of these birds have due to breeding results.

Really? Hmm, okay, well I'll try and since you've bred most of your flock, you probably know. Be sure to tell me anything I missed so I get this right. Just so you know, I these may be way off.

Pip: WF pied split pearl? Also, his face has a really light slivery wash to it. If I'm right about his split, does that have anything to do with it?

Elvis: Normal grey pearl split to WF?

Azazel: Looks cinnamon, but he may be a light NG. I'm guessing split to pearl.

Ladybug: Cinnamon pearl split to pied?

Teela: Lutino pied?

I think I've already mentioned Lucy's mutation quite a few times, but you can go ahead and try. I'll post a picture of Pecky, too. I have a front and back shot of both, for you.

So here is Lucy.


And here is Pecky.



The second one is the closest thing I have to his backside, without my face being in it. I hope it's enough.

Well, Lucy comes from Buster and Shodu. Buster is a NG and Shodu is a WF. Normal grey is dominate and WF is recessive, and Lucy is a cinnamon. Cinnamon is a sex linked trait, so a cock from this pair can't be a cinnamon, so Buster must be split to cinnamon in order to have Lucy I think. Or I did something wrong and both parents have to be split to cinnamon to have a cinnamon chick. Boy I'm getting really tired of writing the word cinnamon.

Lucy: Cinnamon split to WF?

Pecky: All I see is WF pearl pied.

Yes, she is a cinnamon. I am not sure about which parent is split, but Carolyn has said that all of her cinnamon chicks from Buster and Shodu are female (as well as the lutino chicks).

As far as I know, Pecky was a white-faced pearl pied. I don't have any better-quality pictures, sadly, so I have no idea if he could possibly be split with anything. One of the tiels we adopted with him was cinnamon though, so he could be split, if they were related. His "brothers" were both pied, one being a dirty-faced pied (neither being pearls) and his "sister" was a cinnamon pearl. If they were related in some way, then it could mean he's split with something. I don't know anything about their heritage, since they were adopted from a rescue.

EDIT: However, judging by their behavior, I know that they were all hand-fed, since they all chirped to the microwave. Assuming the four were raised together, this would most likely mean they were siblings.

He's WF pied split cinnamon but not to pearl. The number of pearl babies that he's had with his pearl mate is zero out of 16, so if he's got a pearl gene hiding in there somewhere I've had an extraordinary run of bad luck. Those ghost pearls on his wings are apparently due to the spot gene, since I do get some spotty chicks out of him.



Elvis hasn't produced any babies that I definitely know are his so I'm not sure whether he's visual pearl or split pearl. But it sure looks like he's one of those. Susanne says a visual pearl male will always retain some mottling on the underside of the tail and he doesn't have that, so maybe he's just split. But I think it's likely that there are exceptions to the rule and he might be visual. He also has a small pied tickmark on the back of the head. I don't know if he's split WF or not. His cheekspot says yes but I've found that cheekspots can lie.


Yes, he's cinnamon. He has a fairly large pied tickmark on the back of his head, and he's definitely split whiteface since he gave me a whiteface baby this year. I'm not sure whether he's visual pearl or split pearl, but he's definitely one of them since that whiteface baby was also pearl. He does have splotchy coloring on some of his tail feathers and wing feathers, but it doesn't look like pearl mottling to me. I'll have to wait until next year to see if he gives me any non-pearl daughters. His babies are super easy to sex because all the girls have to be cinnamon and none of the boys can be cinnamon.


She's a grey pearl, and I think she's actually visual pied. Her pied markings are very slight - besides the tickmark on the back of her head, she also has a small patch of pied feathers between her legs, and one single solitary pied wing feather, which usually can't be seen because her wings are clipped. Susanne says that have a pied wing feather is an infallible sign of a visual pied bird, which other breeders have shown me is not always true. But I think it worked in Ladybug's case. 15 of the 16 babies she's had with Pip were pied. There was one chick this year who only had a pied tickmark, which makes me wonder if Lady had a fling with Elvis. He courts her constantly but I've never seen her respond to him. But it's possible that something happened when I wasn't looking.



Lutino yes. Pied no. She's split to whiteface.

It was a trick question when I showed closeups of Ladybug and Teela's faces, but you didn't fall into the trap. Both of them have signs of a whiteface split and Teela really is since she has a whiteface mother, but Ladybug apparently isn't actually split. There were zero whiteface chicks among the 16 that she's had with her whiteface mate. Before she settled down with Pip she had 8 more chicks with her male harem consisting of Pip, Azazel and Elvis, and there weren't any whiteface chicks then either even though all of them are either known to have the gene or look like they have it. So I'm pretty sure she isn't split WF. When I showed those same pictures on TC a couple of years ago, everybody DID fall into the trap.

Hens can't be split to cinnamon because it's a sex-linked mutation. With sex-linked mutations, a hen will be visual if she has the gene, and if she isn't visual it means she doesn't have the gene at all. There's an explanation here if anybody wants to make their own head spin lol: http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/i ... inked.html

Buster is split to cinnamon and that's where my cinnamon girls come from in this pair. I can't get any cinnamon boys from them because a cinnamon mother is required to get a cinnamon son, and Shodu isn't cinnamon. Buster is also split to lutino so he's also the source of my lutino girls. Lutino is sex-linked too and follows the same inheritance rules as cinnamon. So I can't get any lutino boys from them because Shodu isn't lutino. If Buster had followed his original romantic plan and paired up with Mims instead of Shodu, they would have had some lutino boys.

He would probably be fine with Mims, if it weren't for his little slip-up.

What did the people on the TC forum answer, for that trap? They must not be the best with genetics, if all of them fell for it. Props to Stephanie for being clever!