Hello, I purchased my first two IRN's at a bird mart a couple weeks ago. The woman told me they were blue lacewings and already had been split. The heads are white, pink/redish beaks, pink feet, and eyes big & black with what appears to be a tinge of red around the white (tanish when pinning). The remander of the bodies is pastel blue with white cupping the edges of the wing feathers. (I assume Blue Lace wing is the proper term?)
I have noticed, they are suppose to be sisters, but one's body is more muscular, nails were much longer, full length tail and much meaner then her sister who is little chunky shy girl with tail feathers just coming out. Can a clutch produce such varations or might these two come from diffrent years?
Lastly, and most importantly, what males should I be looking for which will produce some unique offspring? I have been playing with the genetics calculator, but am having some difficulty understanding it.
My next Bird Mart is this saturday in Corpus and am hoping to find the right mates.
thanks
Jim
First Post, couple questions
Moderator: Mods
First Post, couple questions
Jim H
Nodding the head is not rowing the boat!
Nodding the head is not rowing the boat!
Glad to have another Jim from Texas on the board.
You said the breeder said they had already been split. Do you know what the breeder meant by this? When discussing parrot genetics split means that a bird has recessive traits, i.e., genetic characteristics that don't manifest themselves visually but can be passed along to offspring. Also, I don't think there's any kind of official arbiter for the terminology but your birds are probably what the genetics calculator refers to as pallid rather than lacewing.
The blue mutation is what's known as a simple recessive mutation. For a bird to be visually blue it must inherit a copy of the blue gene from both of it's parents. If you would like any potential babies from these females to be blue you don't need a blue male but you at least need a male that is split for blue.
The pallid mutation is a sex linked mutation. The gene responsible occurs on the same chromosome that determines the sex of the bird. As a practical matter this means that males need two copies of the gene in order to exhibit the trait while a female needs only one. This also means that all female offspring of a visually pallid male bred to a normal female will exhibit the trait but that all male offspring will only be splt for the trait. Conversely, all male offspring of a visually pallid female bred to a normal male will be split for the trait and all female offspring will not inherit the trait at all. You get more "bang for your buck" with a male pallid then you do for a female pallid. If you want to produce babies that are visually pallid you will have to breed your females to a male that is at least split for pallid.
If you want to produce babies that look visually different from either parent a good bet might be to acquire a lutino male, which has the advantage of being fairly common. The ino mutation occupies the same spot on the chromosome as the pallid mutation. When a bird inherits one ino gene and one pallid gene it produces, in male offspring, a mutation called pallidino which looks kind of halfway between pallid and lutino. If you can locate a lutino male that is split for blue and breed him to one of your pallid blue females you'll get a bit of a rainbow clutch - 50% pallidino males, 25% lutino females and 25% albino females.
Hope that helps.
Jim
You said the breeder said they had already been split. Do you know what the breeder meant by this? When discussing parrot genetics split means that a bird has recessive traits, i.e., genetic characteristics that don't manifest themselves visually but can be passed along to offspring. Also, I don't think there's any kind of official arbiter for the terminology but your birds are probably what the genetics calculator refers to as pallid rather than lacewing.
The blue mutation is what's known as a simple recessive mutation. For a bird to be visually blue it must inherit a copy of the blue gene from both of it's parents. If you would like any potential babies from these females to be blue you don't need a blue male but you at least need a male that is split for blue.
The pallid mutation is a sex linked mutation. The gene responsible occurs on the same chromosome that determines the sex of the bird. As a practical matter this means that males need two copies of the gene in order to exhibit the trait while a female needs only one. This also means that all female offspring of a visually pallid male bred to a normal female will exhibit the trait but that all male offspring will only be splt for the trait. Conversely, all male offspring of a visually pallid female bred to a normal male will be split for the trait and all female offspring will not inherit the trait at all. You get more "bang for your buck" with a male pallid then you do for a female pallid. If you want to produce babies that are visually pallid you will have to breed your females to a male that is at least split for pallid.
If you want to produce babies that look visually different from either parent a good bet might be to acquire a lutino male, which has the advantage of being fairly common. The ino mutation occupies the same spot on the chromosome as the pallid mutation. When a bird inherits one ino gene and one pallid gene it produces, in male offspring, a mutation called pallidino which looks kind of halfway between pallid and lutino. If you can locate a lutino male that is split for blue and breed him to one of your pallid blue females you'll get a bit of a rainbow clutch - 50% pallidino males, 25% lutino females and 25% albino females.
Hope that helps.
Jim
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