A White is a White is a White

[little blue]

debbie cant wait to hatch her eggs this year she has sp male white hen an sp hen she got them because you never know what your going to get ahahaha

 

[deerman]

Quote:
same in other birds to like parakeet pied produce some white, which can be blue or green.

Actually, in parakeets, there is no single mutation which results in white. "White" is the combined result of a blue mutation with a yellow mutation, one of which is called lutino. The blue mutation deletes the lutein (yellow pigments) and the lutino mutation deletes the melanin (brown-black pigments). Additionally, lutino is sex-linked recessive and blue is autosomal recessive. Thus all albino parakeets are really "blue-lutino."

Pied is a completely different mutation (and in budgies, there are several different pied mutations...one is dominant, the others are recessive) and affects only the distribution of melanin. Thus a green pied bird will NOT have white markings -- it will have yellow markings. The only pied birds with white markings will also have the blue mutation. Thus pied leaves markings devoid of melanin, and in a bird that is blue, there is no lutein, so removal of melanin and lutein results in white patches.

This is a simplified version of how it works, because there are different kinds of "blue" mutations with varying levels of lutein (some "blues" have none, some have reduced...thus some "blue" budgies have white faces, and others have pale yellow faces, and are two different types of blue). Also remember that in parrots, there are two main types of pigments, whereas in peafowl, there is only one. "White" is the absence of color, so in parrots, "white" requires removal of two different pigments, and thus two different mutations.

There are also different genes which would result in a "yellow" bird. Lutino removes all melanin, and lutino birds are pure yellow with white where there would otherwise be blue or brown or black in a normal green budgie. There is also a "yellow" mutation which does not eliminate all melanin, and these "yellow" birds have some dark markings. If combining this "yellow" with blue to get "white" then the result is not "albino" but a sort of "marked off-white" bird. There are also cinnamon mutations, which reduce the melanin from black to warm brown, and the green to a greenish-yellow.

Peafowl have a small number of mutations when compared to other domestic species, but there is still room for more variation, if people would try combining colors. Note above how I said that there is no "white" mutation in budgies, but the color comes about from combining two different mutations.



~Christopher

Didn't want to get into the genetic of parakeet, yes i raised them many years, heck alot more, know about the blue and yellow, albino, and white from pied not the same. That is not the same in peafowl, there is no abino in peafowl. Post this thread about whites from pieds. I know about the 2 pieds in keets, also there are white with dark eyes(non albino)

Again talking peafowl whites , was pointing out how white mask the colors, and pattern...no need to make it harder to understand by adding genetics about parakeet, which are a heck alot more harder than peafowl.
l

 

[AquaEyes]

Yes, the genetics become more complicated as the number of mutations increase. I work with budgies and zebra finches in a lab at school, testing auditory perception (they hear a sound, and peck the left or right key depending on what's presented, and get a food reward if correct) and I thought perhaps I'd try and do a pedigree for the budgies to predict colors in future matings. Then I looked online to find a list of mutations, and was a bit overwhelmed. It's one thing to predict percentages in matings when you know what you've got, but trying to determine what mutations are going on just by looking at these budgies proved a little daunting. I can recognize some, but I can't tell if a budgie is "dilute" or "cinnamon" or one of the others.

I posted another thread called "combining colors" in the peafowl area, hoping to get some people to respond. I believe that the "Peach" color is really a combination of Purple and Cameo and not a separate mutation, and discussed that there. If the information on Brad Legg's site about the origin of "Peach" is correct, then it must be the result of a crossover and not a separate mutation. Deerman, did you get to look over that thread? What are your thoughts? You have so much peafowl experience....I was hoping to hear your input. Have you ever tried combining a sex-linked recessive color with an autosomal recessive color? You could get your first visual females in the second generation. If you have experience breeding budgies you'll know that the violet factor appears the most "violet" in birds that are blue and have one dark factor. I wonder how Purple in peafowl would look if it was combined with midnight.



~Christopher

 

[jbourget]

such a great old post i dug up here deerman! thank you for all this info you share

great to know as whites are my FAV

 

[Glenmar]

Wow. Thanks for that knowledge. I hope to get a few whites this year. Now I will be better informed.