# Can you tell what mutation the chick is?



## edmyloo (Nov 18, 2010)

I'm just wondering if you can tell what kind of mutation the chick is, or if it's too early. The first few pictures are of the parents. The one with the gray on his wings is the father. Also, does the chick look healthy? I think it's healthy, but what do I know? It's been having some crop emptying problems though, PM me if you're willing to help. And I'll type a pretty good amount each PM usually, so prepare to read a bunch of rambling nonsense.

Also, can you tell the gender from these?

http://img230.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=img0650a.jpg


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## lperry82 (Aug 2, 2010)

You can use the virtual breeder simply set the males mutation and females mutation and then select breed and it will give you the outcome 
http://www.kirstenmunson.com/cockatiels/blue.html
Here is a link on srtiels website about crop http://justcockatiels.weebly.com/crop-and-digestive-problems.html


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## edmyloo (Nov 18, 2010)

lperry82 said:


> You can use the virtual breeder simply set the males mutation and females mutation and then select breed and it will give you the outcome
> http://www.kirstenmunson.com/cockatiels/blue.html
> Here is a link on srtiels website about crop http://justcockatiels.weebly.com/crop-and-digestive-problems.html


I actually don't specifically know what mutations the parents are. Also, I've seen the crop page, but this isn't answered by what's on that page.


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## lperry82 (Aug 2, 2010)

If you ask srtiels im sure she will be able to help you


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## srtiels (May 1, 2009)

It looks like the baby is a pied, possibly a pearl pied. When it grows out the feathers again you can post more pix's. If the dark feathers on the body are grey toned it vould be a male, and if brown toned a female.


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## edmyloo (Nov 18, 2010)

srtiels said:


> It looks like the baby is a pied, possibly a pearl pied. When it grows out the feathers again you can post more pix's. If the dark feathers on the body are grey toned it vould be a male, and if brown toned a female.


Alright, thanks! That should be around next week looking at your website. I'll post again then.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

It looks to me like the father is pied and the mother is lutino. And yes, that chick does look pied! It has grey pinfeathers on the wings and yellow pinfeathers in many other places. It's probably going to look a lot like daddy. 

This means that your mother bird must be at least split to pied. If ALL the babies turn out to be pied then she's probably full pied. There are a lot of mutations that can hide behind lutino coloring. Of course it's possible that she's clear pied instead of lutino. Can you tell whether her eyes are red or dark?


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## edmyloo (Nov 18, 2010)

tielfan said:


> It looks to me like the father is pied and the mother is lutino. And yes, that chick does look pied! It has grey pinfeathers on the wings and yellow pinfeathers in many other places. It's probably going to look a lot like daddy.
> 
> This means that your mother bird must be at least split to pied. If ALL the babies turn out to be pied then she's probably full pied. There are a lot of mutations that can hide behind lutino coloring. Of course it's possible that she's clear pied instead of lutino. Can you tell whether her eyes are red or dark?


The mother is lutino, I'm sure of it. Her eyes are all red unlike the baby's eyes and the dad's. From what I can tell, the dad's eyes are all black, and the baby has a red pupil, and black surrounding it. I read that that's a non-lutino on srtiels' website. I can kinda see some grey tint on the feathers on the baby's face. Does that mean it's going to be dirty faced? Also, the cheek feathers are looking like a darker orange like the dad. I'm raising the only hatched baby that's alive. We're going to remove their eggs and not let them hatch until the weather gets warmer. What do you think are the chances of a lutino chick?


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## Cheryl (Dec 27, 2008)

I think its a cinnamon pearl pied. If you zoom in and look at the pin feathers near the shoulders they have a brown and yellow pattern. I think the redish pupil also indicates its a cinnamon. On my screen the chick also looks like it has a bit of a brown tint in its feathers.

Unless the father is split to lutino, there is a 0% chance of a lutino. The grey on the face does mean it will have a dirty face.
Also, how long are you removing the eggs for? They don't last very long if not kept on heat if removed right after they are laid (I think about a week, but I could be wrong..someone else can say more about it).. Also if the the chicks are already developing they WILL die from chilling very quickly. Removing will probably kill the babies. They don't just become "dormant". Have you candled the eggs?


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## edmyloo (Nov 18, 2010)

Cheryl said:


> I think its a cinnamon pearl pied. If you zoom in and look at the pin feathers near the shoulders they have a brown and yellow pattern. I think the redish pupil also indicates its a cinnamon. On my screen the chick also looks like it has a bit of a brown tint in its feathers.
> 
> Unless the father is split to lutino, there is a 0% chance of a lutino. The grey on the face does mean it will have a dirty face.
> Also, how long are you removing the eggs for? They don't last very long if not kept on heat if removed right after they are laid (I think about a week, but I could be wrong..someone else can say more about it).. Also if the the chicks are already developing they WILL die from chilling very quickly. Removing will probably kill the babies. They don't just become "dormant". Have you candled the eggs?


Dang, so I can't get a lutino chick if only the mother is lutino? I don't notice any brown on the feathers, but I have an untrained eye, so I'm not sure. We're just removing the eggs so they can't hatch right now(killing the egg I guess). The cold weather outside and the inexperienced parents are less than ideal for baby chicks. So, me and my father would rather not have any chicks hatch from the eggs right now and are waiting until the weather gets warmer. I'll keep you guys updated when the feathers will be all out sometime within the next two weeks.


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## Cheryl (Dec 27, 2008)

Nope, lutino is a sex linked recessive. In order to produce a lutino the father MUST carry the lutino gene, the mother doesn't have to. That would only produce female lutinos though. In order to get a male, you need both parents to carry the gene.
And the "brown" may just be from my screen. Colors aren't always the same on every computer monitor.


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## edmyloo (Nov 18, 2010)

Cheryl said:


> Nope, lutino is a sex linked recessive. In order to produce a lutino the father MUST carry the lutino gene, the mother doesn't have to. That would only produce female lutinos though. In order to get a male, you need both parents to carry the gene.
> And the "brown" may just be from my screen. Colors aren't always the same on every computer monitor.


Danggittt... No big deal, just would prefer a lutino chick. I'll check again at the feeding tonight and I'll look more carefully at the pinfeather details. I'll post the results after.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Your father bird could be split lutino but you'll have to wait for them to have more babies before you can find out. If he's split, then you can get lutino chicks of both sexes.  If he isn't you won't get any lutino chicks, but all the males will be split lutino thanks to mom. Lutino is a sex-linked gene, and lutino mothers pass the gene to all their sons but are incapable of passing it to their daughters.


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## edmyloo (Nov 18, 2010)

tielfan said:


> Your father bird could be split lutino but you'll have to wait for them to have more babies before you can find out. If he's split, then you can get lutino chicks of both sexes. If he isn't you won't get any lutino chicks, but all the males will be split lutino thanks to mom. Lutino is a sex-linked gene, and lutino mothers pass the gene to all their sons but are incapable of passing it to their daughters.


Ohh! Okay, the reminds me of high school Biology from a few years ago. So if my male chicks mate with a female lutino or lutino split, there's a chance of that chick being lutino right?


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

If he mates with a female lutino then each of their babies has a 50% chance of being lutino. Sex-linked mutations are complicated - males can be split but females can't. A female can have a maximum of one lutino gene (which she gets from her father) and if she has it she'll be lutino.

Here's how it works. I'm sure you know that in humans, males have XY sex chromosomes and females have XX. It's similar with birds, but in reverse - males are XX and females are XY. The chromosomes actually look more like a W and a Z, but most sources use the X and Y designations because they're more familiar.

Sex linked mutations (lutino, pearl, and cinnamon) are recessive genes carried on the X chromosome. A female has only one X chromosome (which she got from her father) and there's nothing on the Y to offset it, so if she has the gene she'll display the color. Males get one X chromosome from Dad and another from Mom. If the gene is on one of these chromosomes but not the other, the male will be split and can have offspring with that mutation if he's paired with the right hen. If the male has the gene on both his X chromosomes he'll display the color.


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## edmyloo (Nov 18, 2010)

tielfan said:


> If he mates with a female lutino then each of their babies has a 50% chance of being lutino. Sex-linked mutations are complicated - males can be split but females can't. A female can have a maximum of one lutino gene (which she gets from her father) and if she has it she'll be lutino.
> 
> Here's how it works. I'm sure you know that in humans, males have XY sex chromosomes and females have XX. It's similar with birds, but in reverse - males are XX and females are XY. The chromosomes actually look more like a W and a Z, but most sources use the X and Y designations because they're more familiar.
> 
> Sex linked mutations (lutino, pearl, and cinnamon) are recessive genes carried on the X chromosome. A female has only one X chromosome (which she got from her father) and there's nothing on the Y to offset it, so if she has the gene she'll display the color. Males get one X chromosome from Dad and another from Mom. If the gene is on one of these chromosomes but not the other, the male will be split and can have offspring with that mutation if he's paired with the right hen. If the male has the gene on both his X chromosomes he'll display the color.


Ohh okay! I get it now! So a female is either lutino or not, but a male can be split. If the male is hiding the lutino gene, and the female is lutino, I can get a lutino chick. So it's actually possible for me to get a lutino chick because I don't know what the male's parents were. I checked the feathers today. I did see alternating colors so it's probably pearled. Some of the yellow had a grey tint to it, and I'm not sure if that's brown or not, so I can't really say whether it has brown or grey feathers until they grow out. Thanks for the explanation tielfan! Really cleared some things up for me.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

> So if my male chicks mate with a female lutino or lutino split, there's a chance of that chick being lutino right?


Clarifying a little further... all your male chicks will get the lutino gene from their mother. So they'll all be capable of having lutino daughters no matter what color their mate is. 
Your male chicks won't have any lutino sons unless they're mated to a lutino hen.

Pearl is a sex-linked gene so it follows the same rules as lutino. It looks like your baby is pearl, and if your hen is NOT lutino pearl then this baby must be female. If the mother IS lutino pearl then the chick could be either male or female. 

Buster has the lutino gene on on X and cinnamon on the other, and he's also split whiteface which is not sex-linked. So all his daughters are either cinnamon or lutino. His mate Shodu is whiteface grey so all their sons are grey with a split to either cinnamon or lutino. In addition, all chicks are either whiteface or split to it. I can tell what sex my chicks are just by looking at their feather color.


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## edmyloo (Nov 18, 2010)

tielfan said:


> Clarifying a little further... all your male chicks will get the lutino gene from their mother. So they'll all be capable of having lutino daughters no matter what color their mate is.
> Your male chicks won't have any lutino sons unless they're mated to a lutino hen.
> 
> Pearl is a sex-linked gene so it follows the same rules as lutino. It looks like your baby is pearl, and if your hen is NOT lutino pearl then this baby must be female. If the mother IS lutino pearl then the chick could be either male or female.
> ...


Hmm, so a lutino SPLIT father that mates with a lutino mother CAN produce lutino sons. I don't really get where the pearled came from. It DOES look like it's pearled. I can see alternating colors in the feathers that already came out. Neither of the parents are pearl from what I can tell though. And someone mentioned that if it has grey feathers, it's a male and if it has brown, it's a female. What if this contradicts with the pearled being a female? And when a bird is split to another mutation, is that mutation visible? Or is it just one of those hidden recessives?


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

> so a lutino SPLIT father that mates with a lutino mother CAN produce lutino sons.


Yes. As long as the male chick gets the lutino gene from both parents, it doesn't matter whether the father was full lutino or just split. 



> I don't really get where the pearled came from.


It came from your daddy bird for sure and possibly your mommy bird too. With all the sex-linked mutations (lutino, pearl, cinnamon), there won't be ANY chicks with that color unless dad has the gene. If dad is the only one with that gene then all the chicks with that color will be females. If Mom has the gene (and you'll know whether she does or not because she'll show the color if she has it**) then you can get male chicks in that color too.

**It's not always easy to tell how many mutations a lutino has. It's possible that your hen is lutino pearl but doesn't have enough contrast in her yellow tones for you to see the pearls. She obviously has at least one pied gene because she has a pied baby, but you can't tell whether she's full pied or split because lutino covers up the full pied color scheme.

If you have a pearl baby it means that your male is at least split pearl. He could even be full pearl - males usually lose their pearls when they mature so it's not so obvious whether he's normal grey or pearl. srtiels may be able to tell you more if you post a good photo of his wing feathers (the coverts not the primaries).




> someone mentioned that if it has grey feathers, it's a male and if it has brown, it's a female.


srtiels is an expert on a lot of subtle signs that the rest of us are clueless about. She can explain this comment to you but I simply don't know!

Is your male cinnamon pied? If he is then all the female chicks will be cinnamon but the males would be grey split cinnamon, which might explain the comment (assuming that your hen is NOT cinnamon. But again, it can be hard sometimes to tell the difference between a lutino and a cinnamon lutino).



> when a bird is split to another mutation, is that mutation visible?


It depends on what the mutation is and various other factors. For example a pied split is sometimes visible and sometimes not. Adult male birds can show subtle signs of splits to whiteface or pearl. Lutino and cinnamon splits are completely invisible as far as I know.


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