Saud's Aviary

This post relates to my Alexandrine Mutations Project. If you are new to my blog you should start reading about this project here . To summarize, I paired up a normal Alexandrine cock to an albino ringneck hen last year to start my alexandrine mutations project. The hen laid 10 eggs in two clutches but all eggs were infertile. Here's what happened this year.   The pair was moved to a breeding cage in preparation for the 2012 season in September 2011. The birds were still bonded, perching together and the male feeding the hen. They however showed no interest in the nest box. As the breeding season peaked, the hen started to flirt with me again. She would jump to the cage floor and approach the feeding area where I would be refreshing their food and water dishes. She would then assume a mating position and make a cooing sound. I would ignore her and carry on with my tasks. The male would sit on the perch and watch the hen very closely. He was not very happy at the sit...

I have written a few articles on breeding Alexandrine mutations including the Lutino  and Blue mutations. These articles were based on internet research and my own knowledge of genetics. I practically started working on this project in Aug 2010 by paring a normal Alexandrine male to an Albino Indian ring-neck hen. This allows me to get started on both the blue and lutino mutations simultaneously. All chicks from this pairing will be useful in the next generation. The males will be useful for the lutino project and the females for the blue Alexandrine project. The hen was bred in Jan 2009 from a blue ringneck pair where the cock was split to ino. She was hand raised from 3 weeks old and was a tame bird when weaned. I wanted to keep her as a breeder and stopped handling her soon after weaning. She still does not fear humans like other birds and always comes close to me during feeding time. The male was purchased in July 2010 as a young adult approximately two yea...

In order to achieve a visual blue or grey, both parents must carry the blue gene as blue is a recessive mutation. Breeding a blue/grey is therefore more complicated than breeding a lutino. I don't have first hand experience of doing this but from my knowledge of genetics and extending what I have discussed in my article on the lutino, I would suggest the following. STEP 1 Start with 2 pairs, all birds should be unrelated. Pair One: Normal Alexandrine cock X Blue IRN hen Pair Two: Normal Alexandrine cock X Grey IRN hen Pair one will give you offsprings all of which are split to Blue. The good news is that you can use both males and females from here in step two. Pair two will also give you offsprings all of which are split to blue. If your grey IRN was single factor grey then half of the offsprings will appear grey-green. If the Grey IRN was double factor grey all the offsprings will be grey green. You should use a grey-green from this pairing in Step 2. ...