Conure Mutations!

Hello. I have a pineapple GCC. I don't know the gender yet. I'm thinking of bringing a mate for him. It's a turquoise color. So here is my question. What color will it come out if they have babies? My conure parents are both pineapple. I don't know about the turquoise, but I think their parents are turquoise too.

So what happens if...
pineapple+pineapple=pineapple
+
turquoise+turquoise=turquoise
--------------------
??

I'm hoping Dani (SilverSage) will pop in with this. I guess what I would like to add is how experienced are you with handfeeding, raising, and breeding conures? Because it's not something "simple" like you would see with cats and dogs. It can be exhausting, heart breaking, extraordinarily expensive, and none of your babies may even make it past the first few months of life.

I'm also not positive for conure genetics, but there are gene calculators online that you can use:

Genetic Calculator 1.3 Green-cheeked Conure

If you understand conure mutations, then it'll be relatively easy to figure out. But because you don't know the actual parental lineage, it may get more confusing based on potentials to split to other mutations.

LOL its a little more complicated than that.... Dani (Silver Sage) can double check me to make sure i'm correct.... but it depends on a ton of things....
Yellow sided and cinnamon are sex linked.....

turquoise is recessive so to get turquoise the parents would both have to carry a turquoise gene... the only way you will get turquoise babies is if the female pineapple is split to turquoise..... (split means carrying that gene but not visually showing that gene)

If your turquoise is the male. He could potentially be split for yellow side and cinnamon (pineapple is actually yellow sided and cinnamon in one bird) IF he is split to either of those mutations and you breed him with a pineapple female
then you could get cinnamon babies, pineapple babies, and yellow sided babies....

IF the turquoise is the male and not split to yellow side or cinnamon and you breed it with a pineapple female... then you will get normal colored babies and the males will be split to cinnamon and yellow side or pineapple....

if the Turquoise is the female, and the pineapple is the male and the female is split to turquoise then the babies could be turquoise, or could be turquoise cinnamon or turquoise yellow sided.....

if the turquoise is the female and the male is not split to turquoise then the males babies would be normal split to cinnamon and yellow sided and the females could be visual pineapple or yellow sided or cinnamon....

I just want to add that breeding birds is hard. It can be heartbreaking, exhausting, frustrating, disappointing....
What are you going to do if you are losing babies? It will happen....
Do you know how to correctly handfeed? Do you know the difference between abundance weaning and force weaning? Do you know why force weaning is bad? Do you know why it is important to allow babies to fully fledge before they are clipped?
How will you handle knowing that your babies have been sold, or what will you do when a buyer calls and says that you have to take your baby back? Will you take the baby back? Will you be okay with knowing that babies you produced may be rehomed 7 times in their lifetime like the average parrot?
Do you have someone (an experienced breeder and handfeeder) to teach you to handfeed, and to mentor you if you run into problems with your babies including but not limited to Slow crop, Crop infections, bacteria infections, yeast, lethargic babies, crop burn, random death, aspiration, parents killing chicks, parents mutilating chicks, parents plucking chicks.....

Do you realize that your sweet baby will probably be an evil bird while he/she is protecting its nest.... During breeding it will NOT be a sweet pet it will be in breeding mode aka protect the baby mode.... You will lose your cuddly pet while they are breeding.... you MIGHT get to love on him outside of breeding season....
IF he ends up breeding at all, if he is too imprinted on humans you may never get babies at all.... which is very disappointing if you are planning for babies.... What are you going to do if they do breed and hatch babies, and then cant possibly know how to take care of them? Silversage and I can both tell you, handfeeding day 1 green cheeks who are less than 2-4 grams is not fun.... not fun at all.....

IF you are sure about wanting to do this my advice would be to find a mentor in your area who can teach you.... Make sure it is a good and ethical one.... being taught by someone who isn't ethical won't do you any good lol..... Next it would be a good idea to research genetics... I love the book "A Guide to Colour Mutations & Genetics in Parrots (Hardcover)
by Dr. Terry Martin
Also there is a book by howard voren about handfeeding.... it is an old book and some info is outdated but there is a ton of good info in it.... I'm sure there are other books out about it but I do not have their names...


I can not stress enough how hard breeding birds is on the body, on the heart, and on the mind.... it isn't a decision to be entered into lightly, BUT is it so rewarding when done right...... Good luck!

amjokai said:

I just want to add that breeding birds is hard. It can be heartbreaking, exhausting, frustrating, disappointing....

Click to expand...

Yep, That's what it is.
I was doing some breeding 15-20 years ago and have not thought twice about doing it again. This week my 13 year old black-capped conure decide she was going to start laying eggs and I'm not happy about it.

First, on getting your bird a mate, PLEASE READ THIS. If you care about your bird, don't ignore this article. It barely scratches the surface of breeding issues. The second part has more to do with you than the first.
Handling Hormones ? Silver Sage Aviaries

Ok, pineapple is a combination of two "sex linked mutations; cinnamon and yellow sided. In sex linked inheritance, the female only has one location for the gene, so she can only carry one copy and only needs one copy to show that she has it. We refer to this as being "visual" cinnamon, meaning the gene is not being carried without showing. A male has two locations, can carry two copies, and needs two copies to be "visual" cinnamon, etc. if he has only one copy, he will hide the gene, that is, he will be "split" to that gene.

So when making babies, if the male is visual pineapple, his daughters will be visual pineapple. If the female is visual pineapple, her sons will be Split to pineapple, but not show it unless the male also carries the cinnamon and yellow sided genes which make pineapple.

Turquoise is recessive, not sex linked. This means both parents can carry either one or two copies and pass them along. If the baby receives two copies, he will be turquoise, one copy will make him carry the gene but not show it.

So, if your bird is male, carries no splits, and you get a female turquoise who also carries no splits, you will get visual pineapple females split to turquoise and visual normal green males split to pineapple and turquoise.

If your bird is female and carries no splits, and you get a male turquoise who carries no splits, all the babies will all be visual normal greens split to turquoise and the males will be split to pineapple.

If your birds have splits it can get really complicated, but it sounds like your breeder is breeding "like to like" which is not ideal but it does reduce the chance of splits.

Lol! Of course she comes in and explains it much better than I did hahah.

This is an old post but I have a similar question. I have a female Turquoise with unknown parents and a yellowsided green cheek male with unknown parents. I have tried looking this up but despite aceing genetics in college and using it for genealogy I cannot seem to grasp it enough to figure out the combinations I may have in their chicks.

If I am right I think I am likely to have normal males and Yellowsided females with a small chance of some Turquoise.

I will see if I can find the book listed above, but if someone could again explain this I would appreciate it.

Jolene7136 said:

This is an old post but I have a similar question. I have a female Turquoise with unknown parents and a yellowsided green cheek male with unknown parents. I have tried looking this up by despite acting genetics in college and using it for genealogy I cannot seem to grasp it enough to figure out the combinations I may have in their chicks.

If I am right I think I am likely to have normal males and Yellowsided females with a small chance of some Turquoise.

I will see if I can find the book listed above, but if someone could again explain this I would appreciate it.

Click to expand...

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Jolene7136 said:

This is an old post but I have a similar question. I have a female Turquoise with unknown parents and a yellowsided green cheek male with unknown parents. I have tried looking this up by despite acting genetics in college and using it for genealogy I cannot seem to grasp it enough to figure out the combinations I may have in their chicks.

If I am right I think I am likely to have normal males and Yellowsided females with a small chance of some Turquoise.

I will see if I can find the book listed above, but if someone could again explain this I would appreciate it.

Click to expand...

If the parents have no unknown splits you will get the following:

Normal green males split to turquoise abs split to yellow sided

Yellow sided females split to turquoise.

Here is a brief explanation of gene inheritance that you might find helpful. Turquoise is recessive, yellowsided (opaline) is sex linked.
http://www.silversageaviaries.com/gene-inheritance-explanation/



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Thank you I appreciate the reply and the recommendation.

That was a great link. Thank you so much! It makes much more sense now.

I’m glad! It’s by no means in depth but I just wanted to write something simple for those of us who don’t use words like “heterozomal” in every day conversations.


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It helped tremendously.