White cockatiels

[NuttyNu]

Hi Guys,

We have just purchased two (Possibly related) completely white cockatiels. Not hand tame (bit my mum!!) and are going into our breeding aviary. they are both this years young but exact age was not able to be given. From experience i would say that they would be at least 3-4 months old.They are very well feathered and are showing no signs of a moult as of yet. They ahve black eyes and not red like Lutinos. and they are completely white and not a yellow colour like lutinos.

how recessive/dominat are these genes? If i breed them with another cockatiel, what would i get any more white ones? We cannot sex them and the breeder they came from could not sex them either. What would i have to breed them with to get a white one as off spring? I am reluctant to breed them together in case they are related and i therefore they can pick to mix with any of our this year offspring.

Any help appreciated and really intregued into these ones. not seen them in person before!! Will try to get some pictures when i have put them in the aviary tomorrow morning.

[Mythara]

They're clear pied whitefaces. If you have a look around, srtiels answered some questions recently about breeding heavy and clear pieds. As far as gender goes, you could get them DNA sexed - there's a few places in the UK that do it, or you could go by behaviour - singing, heart wings, beak banging are all typically male behaviours.

[atvchick95]

you are not planning on breeding them right now are you? They're way too young They need to be at the very least 12 months old with 18 months being better

as stated they are clear pied Which means if you want more pieds and it is not a guarantee you'll get ones like them, Is the mate has to be Pied or Split to pied and to get the White face like they are Their mate also has to be either visual white face or split

both the Pied and White face gene are recessive Both parents have to carry the gene to get any

[NuttyNu]

thanks guys, will have a look around for the other thread(s). No, we are going to put them in a seperate aviary in the winter for a year with all of our offspring from this year and we will breed them in 2011 as they will be about 18 - 24 months old then and a suitable breeding age.

[atvchick95]

oh ok - just thought I'd check, was fairly certain you knew not to breed them this young - but never know about new members wanting to breed they may of thought it was ok to breed young

[NuttyNu]

no worries, we do try not to breed from them when they are young as am also unlikely to get good fertile eggs as they are unlikely to reach sexual maturity until then. When they are old enough, will probably introduce a few "experienced" ones from the neighbouring aviary (The one they are in now) to help "teach them what to do" and do a bit of swapping so that they mix experienced with inexperienced between the two aviaries.