Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 12:07 am Post subject: At last a breakthrough - New mutation in Australia
We have been experimenting for a few years now and finally had a breakthrough. Some of the split birds we have produced from our black eyed clears have coloured up a similar colour to the cinnamon mutation. Several of these birds were unrelated and so we paired them to see whether in fact it is the cinnamon mutation. Early breeding results indicated that these may in fact be cinnamon but we have now proven that can not be the case.
A good friend of mine has produced a normal looking pied bird from a pair of birds that (at first glance) apear to be cinnamon. If this mutation was in fact cinnamon that would not be possible and so we obviously have 2 different mutations combined which in turn has resulted in a normal pied being produced. The other sibling is a black eyed clear and so we can also assume the black eyed clear is a recessive mutation. I have included a picture of the 2 young birds and also a picture of our other "new mutation". This bird is a pied but much darker than the normal cinnamon mutation. We have utilised the blue mutation to achieve this and have also bred some dark normal birds as well. Hopefully this will eventually lead to both "khaki" and "olive" mutations becoming established in Australia.
Greg, do you have anymore picts of the bird in the second photo, maybe a closer shot or even a pict of it with a cinnamon bird so the colour difference can be seen more clearly thanks.
This bird has been paired with one of the black eyed clears that has plum coloured eyes. I have condensed the original picture and included a picture of the fallow cock bird that this bird was produced from. Both parents are similar colour whereas this hen is much darker. I will post some pictures of the darker normals also produced from this line once the weather cools off.
Thanks Greg, can get a much better idea of the colour of the bird in that condensed shot. could this bird possibly be a fallow cinnamon pied? here in australia you are working backwards with the BEC trying to work out what mutations have been combined to produce the BEC we see today. One of the next challenges would be to try and produce a pure fallow without cinnamon showing in its phenotype, if possable? Peter may be able to add something to this debate? It also would be good if the pied gene could be removed in the early stages as it also can have an effect on colour. Once the pure colour is fixed then the other colours can be added. This is were you are at a slight disadvantage by having to work backwards but having said that it may well help you more than hinder you. The BEC is certainly a complex little bird.
We have been very fortunate in regard to the numbers of these fallow?? birds produced and at this point in time we have 4 unrelated pairs breeding. Second generation birds show little or no similarities to the cinnamon mutation and in fact as we stated in the original post we have even produced normal coloured birds from these pairs. This would tend to suggest we may in fact be dealing with 2 seperate types of fallow and not fallow/cinnamon as first thought.
There is a distinct difference in the eye colouration of these birds which may help in seperating the different mutations. Some of these birds have a distinct iris in the eye whilst others have a clear black eye. Second generation birds still produce black eyed clears as well. All of these black eyed clears have a plum coloured eye and if paired back to a fallow will produce a red eyed clear (lutino).
A large part of our collection has now been relocated to a cooler climate and with the additional aviaries answers should be forthcoming in the very near future.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You can download files in this forum