Greencheek Conure Color Genetics

[MBBirdsNV]

Does anyone have any links for resources on the genetics? All Ive seen are from Feather Tree with the prediction outcome stuff. A few other small non detailed stuff here and there..

Reason I ask is I have the following Gcc's and I have never been one to breed for just color. I see so many species with ruined temperaments, feather structure etc. Due to overbreeding to produce something as a new "fad"

Ive always bred my most stable birds in regards to Temperament and health (no. 1 rule) Breeders yes are better if parent raised but it does not mean that they have to freak out everytime I go out to change dishes and check on them. I believe temperament is a number one thing most breeders just dont even look at anymore and in the end we see birds who scream and throw a fit even if their own owners theyve lived with for many many years needs to change out a dish or ones that stress themselves into a seizure or death when getting caught for nail trims etc. I have birds hand fed but turn wild I get it but when theyre caught they sit perfectly on my chest and fall asleep to neckrubs. Ive seen some handfed birds that are allowed to be wild still try to chew a finger off.
I also Always breed back to Normals here and there to retain size.

Anyways to keep it short im new to the gccs I have yearlings and a bit over a yr ones too. I am letting them just grow up a bit more since Im not as knowledgable with em mutation wise as I am with my english budgies and peachfaced lovies I want to make sure theyre in tip top shape and matured before I even try to breed em and since I dont breed for colors I have studied more on housing, diet and basic care needs vs color mutations. That way condition and maturity/age readiness will be eliminated from the list of potential causes if incase I do encounter problems that hopefuly wont happen. But not every bird is the same and I wouldnt be realistic if I said each clutch is perfect without any issues. If that makes any sense?
I do prefer to keep certain mutations and hopefully produce other ones. I was hoping to produce the following Mint/Opamint/Mooncheek/Suncheek and here are Gender and Mutations of what I have I dont know what goes before the other for example: cinnamon turquoise or turquoise cinnamon

HENS
(Visual Color/Split to)
Normal/Dilute
Pineapple/Turquoise Dilute
Yellowsided Turquoise
Mooncheek


MALES
(Visual Color/Split to if known)
Dilute
Turquoise
Normal/Dilute Turquoise
Cinnamon Turquoise

 

[Destiny]

Turquoise , Cinnamon, Yellow-Sided, and American Dilute are color mutations.

Turquoise and American Dilute are autosomal recessive. Cinnamon and Yellow-sided are sex-linked recessive.

Mint, Opamint, Cinnamint, Mooncheek, Suncheek, and Pineapple are all combinations of two or more of those mutations to produce a particular appearance. All mutations must be visual to produce the desired result.

Pineapple is Yellow-sided and Cinnamon.
Suncheek is Yellow-sided, Cinnamon, and Dilute.
Mooncheek is Yellow-Sided, Cinnamon, Dilute and Turquoise.

Mint is Turquoise and Dilute.
Opamint is Turquoise, Dilute, and Yellow-sided.
Cinnamint is Turquoise, Dilute, and Cinnamon.
Mooncheek is Turquoise, Dilute, and Cinnamon and Yellow-Sided. (Basically, it is a mint pineapple)

Okay, so if you want any of the "mint series" birds, they must inherit two copies of both turquoise and American dilute. These are both simple recessive genes, so you want both parents to be carrying both genes, preferably two copies each, so they are both mints or either parent could be split to turquoise or dilute.

For Yellowsided and Cinnamon, things get more interesting, because they are sex-linked mutations. The hen can't be split to these mutations. She is either visual or not carrying. The male can be split or carry two copies. If he has two copies of the mutation, all of his offspring will get a copy, so all girls will be visual and all boys will be split, if the mom is normal. If the mom also carries the sex-linked mutation, all offspring will be visual, because the girls will get a copy from the dad and the boys will get copies of the mutation from both parents.

Your pineapple hen has cinnamon and yellowsided and she is split to turquoise and dilute, so she is a good choice for producing some interesting mint combinations, if she is paired to the right male. Likewise, your mooncheek female has all four mutations present. Unfortunately, you don't have any mint or pineapple/suncheek/mooncheek males. The male who is normal, split to turquoise and dilute would be a decent choice to pair with either female. Some of the offspring might get turquoise and dilute from both parents, so you might get some mints. But he probably isn't going to provide any cinnamon or yellowsided, so you won't get any opamints, cinnamints, pineapples, or mooncheeks.

Your cinnamon turquoise male has the cinnamon, but lacks the dilute gene, so you probably won't get any mints from him either, even if you cross to your mooncheek female.

You might consider starting off by pairing up the yellow-sided turquoise with the cinnamon turquoise. The male offspring of this pairing would be turquoise split to both cinnamon and yellow-sided. Meanwhile, you could pair-up your dilute male with the normal hen, split to dilute. With luck, you should get a visually dilute hen.

Take a male from the first pairing (turquoise split to cinnamon and yellow-sided) and a female from the second pairing (dilute) and pair them up to produce offspring that are split to dilute and turquoise and might also be carrying a copy of cinnamon or yellow-sided.

Depending on what you get, you could then decide how to proceed. Ideally, one of the male offspring could be bred to your mooncheek female to potentially produce some interesting offspring.

If your goal is to produce mostly Mint, Opamint, or Mooncheek, you would save yourself a lot of time by aquiring a mint, opamint, cinnamint or mooncheek male, since that would simplify things a lot. It takes a lot of pairings to go from Turquoise to Mooncheek.

 

[Destiny]

So, purely as a thought exercise, I was thinking about how one might go about producing their own Mooncheeks "from scratch", using easier to find birds as foundation stock. It would take quite a lot of birds and multiple breedings to accomplish this goal, so not something you should attempt unless you have the time, space, and energy to invest in the project

I would start with four pineapple males and four mint females, all unrelated to each other. They would get paired off into four unrelated breeding lines.

The offspring of a pineapple male and mint female pairing would be visually normal males, split to cinnamon, yellow sided, american dilute, and turquoise, and pineapple females split to turquoise and dilute. So the second generation would all carry one copy of all four color mutations.

Breeding second generation offspring from two unrelated pairs would have the potential to produce ANY combination from completely normal without any splits to a mooncheek. A true wild card pairing. Lots of fun but low odds of getting a mooncheek. You could just try it and see what you get, but the outcome would be very luck-based.

To increase the odds of getting more visual mutations, you could take one of the second generation pineapple girls that is split to turquoise and dilute, and pair her up with an unrelated mint male. The all male offspring of this pairing would split to cinnamon and yellow-sided and they would also have a decent chance of being either dilute, turquoise, or mint. The female offspring won't carry cinnamon or yellowsided, but they will have a good chance to be visually dilute, turquoise, or mint, like the boys. We want more color mutations, so from this pairing, we are hoping for a mint boy.

Assuming we are successful and we get a male bird that is mint, split to cinnamon and yellow-sided, we would then want to cross back to an unrelated pineapple female that is split to turquoise and dilute.

Now we have all four mutations on both parents again, but with extra mint, so our odds of a mooncheek, cinnamint, opamint, or mooncheek are much better than before. With any luck, one or more of the offspring will have three or four visible mutations. Depending on what you get, further pairings might be necessary, but a mooncheek should appear eventually.

Of course, you would then want to repeat this process again with different birds to produce an unrelated mooncheek to pair off with your first mooncheek. And there you go ... you developed a brand new line of mooncheeks. It only took five years and dozens of breeding pairs.

 

[LMarie]

Hi, I find Destiny's reply very helpful on the mutations issues! Thanks.

Is there a way to figure what you will get genetics wise with different splits. Is there a chart or method to do this with the various combinations, like I've done in Genetics class years ago?

Specifically I'm looking to possibly buy a Green Cheek pair with a Pineapple split to Dilute male, with a Yellow side split to dilute Female. The other option being using a Pineapple split to Dilute female with male of the same. I'm trying to determine how often I would get suncheeks with these pairings, and what else would result. Also the different results if I can possibly find splits of Turquoise as well as Dilutes in both. Thanks much!!

 

[Marisa K.]

Hi, I find Destiny's reply very helpful on the mutations issues! Thanks.

Is there a way to figure what you will get genetics wise with different splits. Is there a chart or method to do this with the various combinations, like I've done in Genetics class years ago?

Specifically I'm looking to possibly buy a Green Cheek pair with a Pineapple split to Dilute male, with a Yellow side split to dilute Female. The other option being using a Pineapple split to Dilute female with male of the same. I'm trying to determine how often I would get suncheeks with these pairings, and what else would result. Also the different results if I can possibly find splits of Turquoise as well as Dilutes in both. Thanks much!!

I'd really suggest getting a visual pineapple+dilute male and a yellow side + dilute female as your parent generation (P), even it costs more; since in this way you're guaranteed to get F1s with the visual mutations you wish -- otherwise it'll be a bet on what genes your F1 inherit from their mom and dads, and in the worst case you might need to breed several batch of hatchlings before you get the one you desire.

After all, Mendel's rules only give us the possibility what you'll get, but this is not something guaranteed. Like if we say we have both mom and dad split to turquoise, then we know with each baby, it's 25% of chance being a visual turquoise with high school biology. But this does not mean we'll definately get a turquoise baby in every 4 babies. There's still a (1-25%)^4 ~ 31% chance you'll get no visual turquoise babies at all in a batch of 4 :'(

 

[BrianB]

I found this some time ago and it has been helpful. It doesn't have all of the color varieties but covers the most common ones.

 

[LMarie]

Thanks BrianB I have seen that one, and it has been helpful.

Thanks Marisa K. I am thinking now to at least pay more for one visual dilute splits with a Pineapple split to dilute, to up my odds of getting suncheeks. Thanks for the Genetics class reminders!!

I also found this online genetic calculator helpful: Genetic Calculator 1.3 Green-cheeked Conure

 

[Bird Momma]

Hi! I found your conversation most informing and interesting. I'm thrilled to actually find some information! It seems that a lot of breeders want to keep this information secrete or maybe I just didn't know what questions to ask. I want to breed Sun Cheeks and Cinnamon Dilutes. Also, at a later date possibly Moon Cheeks. I currently have 2 pairs turquoise with one pair producing blues and yellow side turquoise and the other producing blues and cinnamon turquoise. The pair with the yellow side turquoise are Male blue/ys and the hen-cinnamon turquoise. Their daughter a Yellow side turquoise hen is with a Blue turquoise male. They produce blues and cinnamon turquoise. Am I correct in thinking if the cinnamon turquoise is a male I should breed it to the yellow side turquoise? They are still babies so I would have time to find a dilute male to breed to an offspring that would carry both cinnamon turquoise and yellow side. Am I correct so far? I realize I need more pairs. Would I need to acquire more turquoise pairs or what mutations do i need? Also, I find it difficult to understand how to use the Genetic Calculator 1.3-Green-cheeked Conure. Could someone please explain how to use the Genetic Calculator 1.3? Thank you so much for any help you may give.

 

[Destiny]

I can't answer your questions because, I don't understand what you are trying to accomplish with the proposed breeding. If your goal is to produce Suncheeks and Cinnamon Dilutes, you do not need any turquoise breeders.

Suncheeks are Yellow-sided, Cinnamon and Dilute.

Do you have any Dilute birds?

 

[Destiny]

Regarding how to use the Genetics Calculator, you need to have a rough idea of the possible mutations present in both parents. Then you can input that information into the calculator and it will output the possible outcomes from such a mating. The more you know about the parents, the more accurate the results. If you only know what the parents look like and not what they are split to, the results will not be 100% accurate because you are missing important information.

For using the calculator, the left-hand column lists the symbols associated with each of the know mutations. You can ignore this column. The next column lists the name of the different mutations. You are interested in cinnamon, opaline(yellow-sided), dilute and turquoise(parblue). You can ignore violet, grey, misty and rec. pied. The next column lists the mode of inheritance. This describes how the mutation is passed along to the offspring. Cinnamon & opaline are sex-linked and dilute & turquoise are recessive.

The right-hand side of the calculator is the important side. This is where you need to input information about the parents. There are two sets of columns, listed under 1.0 and 0.1 - The 1.0 columns are for the MALE and the 0.1 columns are for the FEMALE bird. You can tell them apart because the female column doesn't let you mark the bird as being split to a sex-linked mutation. Female birds can only have a sex-linked mutation or not have it. They can't be split to a sex-linked mutation.

If you want to see the outcome of breeding a male cinnamon yellow-sided to a turquoise yellow-sided female, you would mark the 1.0 column under "Visual" for cinnamon and opaline and the 0.1 column under "Visual" for turquoise and opaline.

If you suspect one of the parents is split to dilute, you would mark the "Split to" column. Don't worry about x1/x2 in the "Split to" column for cinnamon and opaline. It isn't really important and it is complicated to explain. Just pick x1.

Hope that helps.

 

[Bird Momma]

I can't answer your questions because, I don't understand what you are trying to accomplish with the proposed breeding. If your goal is to produce Suncheeks and Cinnamon Dilutes, you do not need any turquoise breeders.

Suncheeks are Yellow-sided, Cinnamon and Dilute.

Do you have any Dilute birds?

I would like to mate the offspring of my cinnamon turquoise and my yellow side turquoise which are Uncle and Niece with a dilute. I don't know the gender of the cinnamon turquoise yet. I've been told that if the cinnamon turquoise is a male I could breed it to a dilute hen. I'd like to know the possibilities.

 

[Bird Momma]

I can't answer your questions because, I don't understand what you are trying to accomplish with the proposed breeding. If your goal is to produce Suncheeks and Cinnamon Dilutes, you do not need any turquoise breeders.

Suncheeks are Yellow-sided, Cinnamon and Dilute.

Do you have any Dilute birds?

No, I don't have any dilutes yet. What would I get if I used my cinnamon turquoise and the yellow side turquoise in a breeding program with a dilute. I thought I read something about a cinni-mint that I could start a line of something with a dilute. One reason I need to know soon is to decide whether to sell the cinnamon turquoise and the yellowside.

 

[MamaBoss]

I have a visual dilute YS male I believe he has yellow sided anyway. His red goes right up to his cream collar and the under side of his wings are yellow. Feet and beak are grey black. I have a cinnamon YS split to dilute and turquoise. I don't know if the male is split to anything, so for this questions sake, let's assume he isn't. Sex linked genes confuse me. In order for visual for sex linked do their have to be 2 copies (1 from each parent) like recessive, or is there a small possibility of suncheeks from this pairing?

 

[expressmailtome]

I have a visual dilute YS male I believe he has yellow sided anyway. His red goes right up to his cream collar and the under side of his wings are yellow. Feet and beak are grey black. I have a cinnamon YS split to dilute and turquoise. I don't know if the male is split to anything, so for this questions sake, let's assume he isn't. Sex linked genes confuse me. In order for visual for sex linked do their have to be 2 copies (1 from each parent) like recessive, or is there a small possibility of suncheeks from this pairing?

Not necessarily. A male can pass on the sex-linked gene causing a visual offspring that is female only by himself. In order for a male to visually show a sex-linked mutation, both parents must have the mutation. The female parent must be visual, but the male parent can be visual or split to the mutation.

 

[Bird Momma]

I have a possible violet turquoise male and would like information concerning developing a violet line. This bird was hatched from a normal turquoise male and yellow- sided turquoise hen. A friend is bringing a special light to look at the possible violet turquoise feathers to be sure if a violet. I'm sending a pic of the possible violet and would like info about determining if my cinnamon turquoise are sex-linked females. My normal turquoise male and yellow-sided turquoise pair are the pair that produced the possible violet and the visual cinnamon hen. I have had a dna done on 1 cinnamon turquoise offspring which turned out to be a hen. This is my violet green cheek conure.