160



Correspondence on Breeding Lutinos



misleading in regard to the lutino factor in birds (particularly budgeri¬

gars) has been published, I take the liberty to address you in the

hope that something in what I write may be of assistance to you in

the production of white Alexandrines.


The lutino is an albino pure and simple. The albino form of any

bird with yellow pigment in its feathers is always a pure canary yellow

colour, providing that no other pigment except melanin is present.

If red pigment be present in any portion of the bird albinism would

not remove or alter the red.


The albino form of any bird possessing only colours dependent

on melanin is always pure white. Blue in blue budgerigars and the

blue portion of the green in Budgerigars and in Nyassa Lovebirds

are dependent on the presence of melanin, and the fact that you have

produced lutino (yellow albino) Alexandrines clearly indicates that

this also applies in the case of Alexandrines. Therefore an albino

blue Alexandrine would be white. (I am presuming that the blue

Alexandrine is all blue with or without black).


As you have the albino factor and the blue in Alexandrines, you

should not have any difficulty in producing a bird with both, because

both are hereditarily transmitted without in any way interfering with

each other’s system of hereditary transmission.


I presume that you have the albino factor only in your green

Alexandrines, and that the green colour is dominant over the blue,

and that your albino factor is a sex-linked one, as I believe the albino

factor always is.


Then you have green Alexandrine cocks carrying the hidden albino

factor—that is green split albino cocks, and albino green hens (lutinos

or yellow albinos). No hens green in colour can carry the albino factor.

All green hens are totally devoid of any albino factor.


All green sons of lutinos (yellow albinos) carry the albino factor

in a hidden form, that is all such can produce albino hens and split

albino cocks when mated with a normal hen (either a green or a blue

hen). In such mating half of the daughters should, on the average,

be albinos and half pure normals, half of the cocks should carry the

hidden albino factor and half should be pure normals, totally devoid

of any albino factor.



