This is just for my own curiosity (I will never breed, too many things to potentially go wrong), but the way ethical dog breeders put together two different breeders for a purpose bred mutt - ie health testing, genetic testing, etc - would that not be something possible in breeding hybrid birds? For example, if you have two well-bred birds, a sun conure and a Hahns, who have no health issues either in them or in their genetic line going back at least a couple generations, would it not be possible to breed a healthy hybrid?
Again, this is JUST my own curiosity, and using what I know about dogs breeding in relation to birds.
I understand purpose bred dog mixes. Then we also have the designer dogs. No purpose other than they're supposed to be unique but started because someone was trying to create a hypo-allergenic dog that wasn't straight poodle. A dog meant for service dog work.
The act of simply CREATING a hybrid has the potential to create health defects. I believe that some nanday x hahns hybrids may have birth defects. The sun conure x green cheek conure hybrids - many are born with foot deformities. These are first gen hybrids! Not all have the foot deformities, and it's possible for one clutch to have NO foot deformities and a second clutch ALL have it. It's really a crap shoot. Breeding different species of parrots together is more akin to breeding a lion and a tiger together... or a donkey and a zebra.
I don't really know much about chicken breeds... but your question may be more akin to breeding a rhode island red with a silkie.... or maybe a silver laced with a blue favacauna?
I think the definition of 'hybrid' for animals requires it to be between two different species -- anything else is just a mix.
There are many species with subspecies.... and breeding subspecies together also creates hybrids. This is known as intraspecies hybridization, as opposed to interspecies hybridization.
The key difference between interspecific and intraspecific hybridization is that interspecific hybridization occurs between two related individuals belongi
www.differencebetween.com
Our green cheek conures are a great example of intraspecies hybridization.... it's hard to pinpoint exactly what subspecies each individual green cheek comes from.... with how muddy some of their coloring is. A more well known one would be your eclectus parrots. It can be hard distinguishing which subspecies a female belongs to.... even harder with a male.
@HemlokHex I hope things are better!
I looked back through some of the old posts and it appears that some of the health issues were seen in at least 3rd or 4th gen hybrids of the hahns/sun/jenday hybrids. (unclear if there was also gold cap)
The breeder who bred the "conan conures" ended up dumping the flock off at a rescue. This is a direct quote from the rescue about the health of the birds....
Many of these birds have heart issues, irregular rhythms, murmurs and heart blocks. Some have feet/toe defects, one is missing an entire wing and one has no tongue, all born that way per the vet. Some have cere deformities with either enlarged or too small nares.
I'm not aware of any others that have bred multi-gen hybrids, nor how they were bred. I truly hope that all of the others out there are in fact healthy.