White (or fully-pied white) zebra and a normal zebra

[Domenic]

My white female and normal male are starting up a clutch and I was just curious about the outcome of their chicks. My female's feathers are immaculately white, so I'm not sure if she is a pied or a true white (I read true whites tend to have speckles). I'm leaning towards a pied, what does this mean for the chicks? No chance of having all white chicks though right?

[Nagdabit]

While you're assessment of your hen sounds accurate, your chick's futures lie primarily in the heritage of the father, the normal gray. Do you have any idea what his parents were? We've had "normals" produce white finches in the past, our Florida fancy came from a male (Izzy) that appeared to be a normal and a solid white hen. But as it turns out Izzy actually is a single factor Florida Fancy. Some variations of the Single Factors can be very difficult to differentiate from a regular normal gray.

Izzy's daddy (Frost) is a white finch that is best described as a dilute CFW/FF. Frost has produced a great variety of offspring for us. In turn his kids have made for an even more interesting array of young 'uns, depending of course who they are paired with.

Roy Beckham's site. (http://www.efinch.com/index.htm) does an excellent job of describing the different mutations of Zebras finches and how they can carry from generation to generation.

Chances are pretty good though that you will end with pieds or normals. Although any number of mutations could pop up out of nowhere. Only way to know for sure is to let them reproduce. Generally each successive clutch will be similar from then on and will give you a general idea of the parents heritage.

[Domenic]

Thanks for the response, it was extremely helpful. Like you said, I have no clue what the parents' genes are. I bought them from a bird store so I don't know if either is split for anything. I guess I will just have to wait for the chicks to know for sure. I hope I get something unexpected though.

[Nagdabit]

That, my friend, is the fun part of all this. Even couples who have produced a number of clutches for us will still pop out something unexpected now and then. Our one couple produced nothing but fawns and normals for the first few clutches now all of sudden they have produced three stunning male CFW's in succession. So you just never know. Let us know how it turns out.

[Domenic]

That's very interesting. After 2 clutches you'd think you'd seen all the pair was capable of producing. Apparently not.

[CandoAviary]

It depends on what is in the normals background and also if the white is a pied white or white. Does it have tear marks?
You will probably get all pieds in differennt degrees of the amount of whites. If you were to breed 2 pieds together you can produce whites. So keep one of the offsprings and then buy a pied to breed it to. The more white the better
I too like the whites. I have 2 pieds set up at this time and also a white set up with a pied but they insist on laying eggs everywhere except the nest???? Crazy birds