GCC Mutations

[RenLynn]

Hello, I just wanted to say some of the amazing Green cheek conure mutations.

First there is the normal GCC, And the yellow sided, that was found in the wild.
The Cinnamon, Pineapple, Turquoise, American Dilute, Mints, Suncheeks AND finaly the rare Mooncheeks(4 mutations in one).

I think I covered most of them, all of them are beautiful but I LIKE the Mooncheeks, Mints and Suncheeks the best.

[paper_lantern]

I currently have a pineapple green cheek named Chubby. He is about two years old now and he's my baby, I love him to pieces!

[RenLynn]

Sounds cute, mine is a yellow side named Sam.

[marie83]

The more mutated they are the weaker and unhealthier the bird. Whilst they are pretty to look at I don't see the beauty in them any longer- just a vision of what is to come for our poor mutated birds.

[Wolf]

The more mutated they are the weaker and unhealthier the bird. Whilst they are pretty to look at I don't see the beauty in them any longer- just a vision of what is to come for our poor mutated birds.

While this statement appears to be true in many cases it is not always true. Me, I will accept beauty any where and any time I find it. And even more so if it is shorter lived as that makes it even more fleeting and precious. But that is me.

And yes, there is way too much overbreeding, which is the problem, not the color mutations. The overbreeding take place over generations and the color mutation can be achieved in just one or two generations.

[RenLynn]

I agree Marie83, there can be to much breeding.
Wolf is right too though.

[Pajarita]

Actually, Marie is correct: the more rare the mutation, the more inbreeding that took place to achieve it and the weaker the bird will be. Wild phenotypes are always dominant so, in order to achieve a rare mutation, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters and, even worse, brothers and sisters are bred together and, sometimes, it has to be done over many generations and breed inbred birds with inbred birds over and over. Not good. Not good at all. The defective babies are gotten rid of but just because a bird looks perfect on the outside, it doesn't mean it's perfect in the inside. I am all for beauty but, to me, a bird is more than just beauty and if beauty means an inherently unhealthy bird, it doesn't matter how outwardly beautiful the bird might be, it's simply not worth it.

[Wolf]

I see what you mean and it may indeed take more generations than I thought, especially if the goal is not just to get the color but for it to breed true as well. Normally the color is the easy part but it usually takes quite a while to make it breed true. And to this let us add that as far as breeding goes, my experience and study is with horses and not with birds. I would also use a much larger gene pool than that if I were to breed to create a new breed( color mutation that breeds true).
Breeding that close always weakens the progeny and with that small of gene pool to draw from it does not allow to reestablish the hybrid vigor, as it is referred to in horses. Definitely not a good option and totally undesirable.

[cmaygar]

I have a turquoise and a pineapple. They are both smart and wonderful birds.

[Pajarita]

It's actually harder than people realize, Wolf. Breeders call it 'line breeding' but this is nothing but a euphemism for inbreeding ('line' comes from 'blood line' so what they do is breed birds from the same blood line which means they are all related). They always say mutation colors are not 'man made', that they are natural but it's VERY rare that you find them in nature. I come from one of the countries that have quakers, I must have seen thousands upon thousands of them and they are all, without exception, the normal green. A blue quaker means one that was born with a defective gene so the plumage does not have the yellow pigment and this leaves just the special structure of the feather which reflects blue light (blue is not a pigment, it's a structural color) but there are two things to consider:
a) a blue bird mating with a normal will just produce splits (it's a recessive gene) and no visuals so, when these split birds (which look green) mate with another normal green bird, you get only 25% of split birds and, again, not a visual blue so the blue disappears.
b) a defective gene is a defective gene and nothing in genetics is 'defective' and affects only one thing, all defective genes have health consequences. Breeders say that the undesirable side health effects can be 'bred out' but it takes years and years of breeding them back to normals to do this and, I don't know if you noticed, but we are getting new weird mutations all the time so it's obvious the breeders are not really taking the time to do it right. Just in quakers we now have:
- pallid
- blue
- pallid blue
- cinnamon blue
- turquoise
- pallid turquoise
- cinnamon turquoise
- cinnamon
- grey
- cinnamon grey
- greygreen
- albino
- aqua
- fallow
- yellow
- lutino
- white
- violet
- pied

Now, if all these mutations have been achieved through a 'good' breeding sequence in order to 'breed out' the bad side effects, how long would it have taken? 50 years? (and I am been conservative!) You are talking about two entire lifetimes of two different individuals working all their adulthood with one picking up where the other left off without really selling a whole lot of babies (because, if they don't sell the defective ones and keep the healthier ones for breeding, they would not have that many to sell - which brings another question to mind: what did they do with the defective babies if they did not sell them?)- now, I ask you, what is the possibility of that happening? I tell what they are: zero! Because 25 years ago, there were no mutations!