Zebra Genetics 101

[Colt]

Zebra genetics is certainly not for the faint of heart. There are so many mutations. But I'm going to give it a whirl.

Berd - Florida Silver male x Grall - Florida Silver/Black Cheek





I have two chicks from them one normal hen (I think) and a male who was previously identified as a Fawn FF but looks a lot like his dad. Currently I have six unattached hens; black cheek, regular chestnut-flanked white, normal, fawn, and silver (everything but the normal and CFW are English/dutch lines too). What would you pair him with?

Leo - Normal x Piper - ?







What is mom? I always assumed penguin/saddleback...possibly pied. They threw 4 chicks all pied this last clutch. Completely threw me for a loop as none of their chicks have ever been pied before. And they all appear to be normal and pied. Previous clutches always had fawns and normals. Does this mean dad is split for pied?

[cindy]

The bird in your hand, she is fawn split to pied (white wing edges, white on top of the head and under the chin....looks like the pied removed color from the upper wing and cheek (based on her picture perching)

[Colt]

Thanks Cindy. Good to know. What would indicate that she was a penguin or saddleback vs pied for future reference? Any idea on why their third clutch showed all pied babies where the previous two did not? And any ideas on a prospective hen for the male from the first pair? (He's the "little squirt" you ID'd on the Finchaholics page.)

[cindy]

Saddleback is just one phase of pied....all the color on the bird is erased except for a triangle or saddle across the back of the bird....ore pied you add in each generation the more color is removed until you get all pied white birds

Penguin is best described by Roy Beckham on efinch.com

http://www.efinch.com/species/pengzeb.htm

past topics of mine:
http://www.finchforum.com/viewtopic.php ... t=penguins
not my topic but my pictures are on the thread http://www.finchforum.com/viewtopic.php ... ns#p249527

[Colt]

Thanks Cindy. I think you should have an online workshop for zebra genetics. We could all tune in to your YouTube channel and get educated. lol

So she's fawn/pied and the male is NG/pied since the chicks from this clutch are all pied? Or could the chicks show pied only receiving one copy from mom?

[cindy]

Estimate of what young you may get from a pied fawn hen and a split to pied male (white wing edges)

25% Normal/Pied Fawn Males
25% Normal/Pied Females
25% Pied /Fawn Males
25% Pied Females


If only one parent carries pied you would get split to pieds,, either pied stays hidden or would show on a split white wing edges, white spot on head and under the chin

[Colt]

Thank you Cindy. Dad must be split to pied then. Good to know.

[Colt]

Alighty, new question. I can hardly tell the fawn hen and the silver hen apart from Garrie Landry's blood lines. The one hen is more fawn evenly throughout her body and has tail bars. The other birds is very silver-grey head on but when she has her back to you is a rich fawn color, even a bit darker than the hen I think is a fawn. And she has no tail bars that I can discern. I don't have any pictures of them that I can put on here as they are too large, but I could post them to the finchaholics page for you Cindy if that would help. Do you have any idea on them?

[cindy]

I would have to see pictures....if the one with the silver head and fawn back is a hen there could be a possibility that dad carries the LB ) lightback gene also (sexlinkinked like fawn) http://www.efinch.com/species/lbzeb.htm

you can post the pictures on finchaholics...if you want I can down size them and post them or send them back to you so you can post them here. if you can can you post the two babies side by side back...as far as no tail bars is it possible the top tail feathers were plucked out?

[lovezebs]

Holy crow... Or should I say, HOLY ZEBRAS!!!

Was that all in English? My head is spinning folks...
Cindy, how in heavens name do you remember all this stuff??? AND... How on earth did we end up with all this, from a tiny little grey Ausie finchling (with a big attitude) ???

[cindy]

Zebras were one of my favorite finches to work with and learn the mutations. I love the java mutations also, they are not nearly has complicated. Now English budgies...those mutations have me a bit stumped at times!

[Colt]

I posted the pictures on Finchaholics Cindy. They aren't the best and I'll try to get you some more. The hen definitely isn't plucked. One of the black cheeks is molting but there's no real aggression in group. Just standard zebra bickering. They are pretty lazy and won't even fly after each other. Just open beaks and hop towards whoever is annoying them. lol Silly girls.

I'll try to edit the size so they can be posted on here as well.

[Colt]

Here they are side by side 2nd and 3rd from the right side. You can see the light front on the 3rd hen.



One on each end with a Black-cheek in the middle:



One of the hens with some American-type hens. You can clearly see the size difference in these birds:





One more of one hen by a Black-cheek:



And two terrible pictures but you can see the color difference from the front on both hens:

[cindy]

Colt from discussing this with you on the group page, it is really difficult to say exactly what the birds are since you don't have the parents just the word of the breeder. If she is telling you that the parents are both BC then these should have black cheeks but they look more FS. One parent might have been split to FS. I am also wondering if the hen pictured in the first picture (bird on the far right) might also have BF since there is a lack of white between the beak and the tear

[Colt]

I know what I'll do Cindy. I'll just male them all to you with a label maker. You can just label them all for me and return to sender...lol

Seriously these guys are so cute but so frustrating when I don't know what I have. Thank you for trying. I'll try to catch the two girls up and get some better pictures of them. Then we can try again.