Breeding Show Quality Birds

[The Maltese]

I would appreciate if someone can confirm or otherwise.

I am being told that when you breed same colours (eg. parents both fawn) the clutch is likely to have good colour, poor feather quality, and the birds are likely to be small in size and hence not show quality.

On the other hand, when you breed different colours (eg. an isabel to a normal) the clutch will consist of both splits and full colours, however the feather quality will be better AND the birds will achieve show quality sizes.

Thanks

[Icearstorm]

The Maltese

A lot of this has to do with inbreeding. Many long-established mutations have good genetic diversity and are safer to breed together.

On the other hand, new mutations are often proliferated through inbreeding/line breeding, and will therefore have less genetic diversity. In this case, breeding full color birds with splits is often the better option for the reasons you stated.

There are some lethal combinations that have more to do with the gene itself than general inbreeding. However, I am not familiar with these and will leave that for another member to explain.

[The Maltese]

Thank You Icestrom.

Suddenly that makes a lot of sense to me.

[andiok]

The Maltese
What kind if bird are we talking here. Different birds have different mutations and ways to establish the mutation. In canaries best feather colour is done with same colour mutation parents. Some mutations will be impossible to breed together due to lethal genes (white dominant)
Some mutations will give you issues on the feathers (red factor frosted x frosted) due to the soft feathers on frosted canaries.
But red intense x intense will give you beautiful colour even though the recommendations are to cross intense with frosted and then select from the chicks for a quality feather. Some other mutations in canaries need to breed with each other only (opals/isabels/lutinos etc) because if bred with other mutations the chics will loose their opal or Isabel patterns
Gouldians will have a very week chics if bred same colour mutation but you will have a double factor of that mutation and a really nice colour. Its adviced that you breed with splits to have a stronger chick.
It's not true that all mutations are established with inbreeding. The first attempts till that mutation was established, yes but nowadays you find blue and yellow, silver Gouldians everywhere, so there is no need to inbreed.

[The Maltese]

Thanks Andiok

Gosh I have so much to learn!

I breed exotic finches mostly so I was mainly referring to Star finches (red vs yellow masks), Hecks (normals vs fawn mutation) and Cherry finches (normal vs fawn mutation). I know for a fact that the person who mentioned to breed fawns to normals and then choose from the chicks was referring to Cherry finches but I was wondering if this rule applies to all mutations.

As i understand from your message pairing same colours as opposed to mixed normals and mutations depends very much on the breed.