Quote:
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?
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.
Quote:
Elvis: Normal grey pearl split to WF?
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.
Quote:
Azazel: Looks cinnamon, but he may be a light NG. I'm guessing split to pearl.
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.
Quote:
Ladybug: Cinnamon pearl split to pied?
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.
Quote:
Teela: Lutino pied?
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.