# Babies



## mpayjr (Aug 16, 2010)

I have a grey split to pied male and a lutino split to pied female. The last nest was all pied babies and I took the virtual breeding thing too. But they all say I will have pied babies. Is there no chance of a lutino baby at all? I would really love one, but by the looks of everything, it seems I won't have one. Does anyone know if there is a chance of one?


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## lperry82 (Aug 2, 2010)

Iv too done the breeder for you and got

Mother:Lutino Split To Pied
Father:Grey Split To Pied

male offspring:
25% Pied Split To {X2: Lutino}
25% Grey Split To {X2: Lutino}
50% Grey Split To Pied {X2: Lutino}

female offspring:
25% Pied
25% Grey
50% Grey Split To Pied

I love going on that dunno why lol think its just male and female outcome


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## Cheryl (Dec 27, 2008)

You will ONLY get a lutino if the male is split to lutino, which it _appears_ he isn't.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Appearances can be deceptive though because a lutino split is completely invisible - you won't know it's there until you find lutino babies in the nest.

Lutino is a sex-linked gene so the inheritance rules are different for males and females. To get a lutino female, she has to get the gene from her father - it's impossible for lutino genes to pass from mother to daughter. 

But a lutino mother WILL give the lutino gene to all her sons - there's no way to avoid it. But males have to get the lutino gene from both parents before they can show the lutino color. 

So you can only get lutino babies if the father has the lutino gene, and you can only get lutino males if the father has the lutino gene AND the mother is lutino.


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## Cheryl (Dec 27, 2008)

tielfan said:


> Appearances can be deceptive though because a lutino split is completely invisible - you won't know it's there until you find lutino babies in the nest.


Not sure if this was in response to what I said.. Just incase: I was actually saying that since he has had no lutino chicks so far, it doesn't appear he does carry the gene. Not appearance as in "physical appearance".
If he was in fact split to lutino, he would have about a 51% chance of having a lutino chick of either sex (according to the cockatiel color palette), which would most likely have resulted in a lutino in the nest. However, percentages don't usually show in individual clutches.. sometimes you need to breed MANY times to start seeing the predicted mutation percentages show.

So it _is_ possible..but I don't find it too likely.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

> I was actually saying that since he has had no lutino chicks so far, it doesn't appear he does carry the gene


Ah. I missed the part about previous babies and assumed that this was a first-time breeder.

The predictions are just statistical averages though and individual results may be very different. Shodu is whiteface and Buster is split to it so half their babies are expected to be whiteface. But there wasn't a single whiteface chick until baby #9 was born. By that time I had already assumed that Buster's breeder was wrong when she said he was split whiteface. 

The more babies your pair has, the closer you'll come to the statistical average. Shodu and Buster have had 20 babies by now and 6 of them were whiteface, so we're up to an average of 30% whiteface chicks. 

It sounds like mpayjr's birds are above average on pied chicks and therefore below average on the greys. If this pair hasn't had too many babies then it's still possible that the daddy bird might have a lutino split that he hasn't passed on to his children yet. But if they've had more than 10 babies with no lutinos then it's probably safe to assume that he isn't split.


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## mpayjr (Aug 16, 2010)

Well, I checked the box today and there was a yellow little chick that was just born! Because it is yellow, can it be a lutino? How do you know from looking at the baby?


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Does it have red eyes? Yellow fuzz doesn't necessarily mean lutino baby. It's only lutino if the eyes are red...if it looks like the baby doesn't have eyes at all then it could be lutino, although I know cinnamon babies do this too but theirs' is a more plum color.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Almost all cockatiel chicks have yellow fuzz. The only ones who don't are the whiteface chicks - they don't have any yellow pigment so they have white fuzz instead. 

Here's a picture of two normal grey chicks and a lutino chick. The greys have huge dark-looking eyes but the lutino's eye color blends in with the skin color. There's also a whiteface chick who's almost invisible - he's the bit of white fuzz between the lutino and the egg:


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## tielmom (Aug 4, 2010)

mpayjr said:


> Well, I checked the box today and there was a yellow little chick that was just born! Because it is yellow, can it be a lutino? How do you know from looking at the baby?


WOW!!! Congrat mpayjr...I feel like I missed something...your tiels are on their second babies? Last I heard you were hoping that they were going to have babies. I am very happy for you  I know how much you wanted tiel babies to raise...congrats again...hope you get your Lutino that you are hoping for too


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## mpayjr (Aug 16, 2010)

Oh. Now, I get it!  Yeah, he has eyes like a grey or something other than a lutino. That's ok with me though! I'm just happy to see babies!


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