Although not a ‘true albino’ the Whiteface Lutino has exactly the same appearance - no colouring except for the pink feet and red eyes. In cockatiels there are two chemicals that produce colour - melanin and lipochrome. The melanin is responsible for the grey, black or brown colouring. The lipochrome produces the yellow and orange colouring.
So if you pair a bird that cant produce lipochromes (a whiteface) with a bird that cant produce melanin (a lutino) you will get some offspring where these two mutations combine to give you a whiteface lutino.
After some research I found that its not that easy! Because of the ways these mutations are inherited we need to get birds that carry both lutino and whiteface genes - and so that we don’t end up with two headed birds - we need two that are not closely related.
Original Plan - Get Donald to pair up with Buttercup.
Revised Plan - Keep two female whiteface chicks from Romeo and Pebbles.
I couldn’t face splitting up Donald and Daisy - and I’d like to have them rest for a few months (although that’s not what they seem to want to do!)
We’ve already got Bertie from Romeo and Pebbles and I’m hoping that one or more of their current clutch will be a whiteface. I’m going to get these tested and keep two of the females.
This is where the fun starts. Getting to this point is really relying on getting two whiteface females from Romeo and Pebbles AND two males from Barnaby and Buttercup. Getting past this step will be getting the males to pair with the females.
If we breed a Male Lutino with a Female Whiteface we’ll get the following chicks:
Males: Grey split to Whiteface and Lutino (see below for meaning of ‘split to’)
Females: Lutino split to Whiteface
At least we’ll be able to tell the males and females apart easily!
Original Plan - Get Barnaby to pair up with Daisy.
Revised Plan - Let Barnaby and Buttercup breed together.
As these two seem to be bonded its seems daft to split them up as well as Donald and Daisy. If these two breed the chicks will all be Lutino chicks.
From this pairing I want to get two males.
‘Split To’
When a bird is ‘Split To’ a mutation it means that they carry only one copy of the gene for that mutation and it is therefore not visible. They can still pass this gene onto their offspring though.
In the case above the Males will be Grey Split to Whiteface and Lutino. This means that all of the males will look like a normal grey cockatiel - like Trixy or Nibbles. They will all carry one copy of the whiteface and one copy of the lutino genes that they can then pass on to their offspring. The odds are that half of their offspring will get a gene with the mutation and the other half a gene without it.
Get a Grey Male bird from the first pairing to pair with a Lutino Female bird from the second pairing. (I think I’m going to have to name these in advance - so I don’t get lost!)
From this pairing we should then get (ignoring Male/Female split):
Whiteface Lutino: 1 in every 8 chicks - Albino
Whiteface: 1 in every 8 chicks
Lutino: 3 in every 8 chicks
Grey: 3 in every 8 chicks
Now the figures shown above are the ‘odds’ of getting each mutation and it could take 3, 4 or more clutches before we get an albino - and this is all relying on me not making any really stupid mistakes!
