[Jenn1469]

Hello all, been a while since I was here last!
I have a white face cinnamon pearl heavy pied male and a pearled normal female.
Last year the surviving chicks were a standard male a cinnamon female, a cinnamon pearl female and a pearled male.

We had another crazy year of way too many eggs (29 so far) this year I didn't intervene and we have 1 16 day old chick it is definitely female as it is cinnamon but it has a solid yellow head and neck and looks like most of the body is coming in yellow beside grey shoulders, there is no pearling on this baby.
Does that mean my hen is split to pied and this chick is pied?

 

[Jenn1469]

Also what are the odds of getting a cinnamon pearl pied chick with the splits? Maybe 1 in 8?
Here is a picture of the baby.

 

[tielfan]

All the daughters of a cinnamon pearl male will be cinnamon pearl, and all the children of a pearl male and a pearl hen will be pearl. Last year only half the chicks were pearl, and that's the result you'd expect from a pearl hen and a split-pearl male. So I suspect that your male is split pearl not visual. Does he have any visual pearling? Unlike normal males, a pearl pied male can keep his pearls for several years, so if he still has them it's a strong indicator that he has two pearl genes. But if you've never seen him with visual pearling, it's likely that he never had any.

This chick is definitely pied, so if these are the correct parents then the mother must be split to pied. With a pied father and a split-pied mother, you'd expect half the chicks to be pied. But the actual results are often different, just like tossing a coin: it's possible to get a fairly long run where you don't get a result that you'd expect to get half the time. I have a pair that's expected to produce 50% whiteface, but they've given me 8 non-whiteface chicks in a row and then outdid themselves a few years later with 10 in a row.

 

[Jenn1469]

Thank you! Yes I'm sorry, he is split to pearl. He has ghosting on him but not a visual pearl. I am so excited about this baby. This is only their second year breeding and the female is a bit over 3 and the male is around 2 and a half. They have hatched lots of babies but only 5 including this one lived long enough to feather so who knows what they might have had.

I'm actually really excited about this baby. I had hoped last year my male was split to pearl and he wasn't showing ghosting from the pied gene and I was right but I also had hoped my female was split to pied and thought I was wrong.
Watching babies feather is like opening Christmas presents!

 

[Jenn1469]

And last years babies are the four in back and mom us preening one.

 

[tielfan]

Pearl and pearl splits are not the only thing that can cause ghosting, but the pied gene isn't known to cause it.

A pied split doesn't always have a visible sign, so a bird can be split pied and not show any trace of it.

The odds of getting four non-pied chicks in a row from this pair are 1 in 16 - the same as the odds of tossing a coin four times and getting four heads in a row. Not something that you'd expect to happen a lot, but also not terribly unusual.

 

[Jenn1469]

Interesting! Thanks for that info. The 2 normals last year had small patches of yellow on the backs of their heads. You can see it on the cinnamon chick in the photo above but I thought it was because they were split and just carrying the gene.
Now I'm wondering what all the little chicks who didn't make it would have looked like. Too bad he hasn't been a good mate and dad. I won't be allowing them to breed again next year.

 

[tielfan]

The yellow mark on the back of the head is a sign of a pied split, and your male is visual pied so all the chicks will be at least split to pied.

 

[Jenn1469]

Here she is today 30 days old. She must be bored being an only child because last year the babies stayed in the nest till about 5 and half weeks and she has been coming out for 3 days already. She has quickly become agile, she is also much sweeter and quieter than last years babies even though they were hand fed a good deal and she hasn't been. She is really cute and sweet.

 

[tielfan]

She's adorable!

The chicks last year were actually a bit slow. Most of my chicks leave the nest at 26 to 28 days, so your little girlie is basically right on time.

 

[Jenn1469]

Yeah I'm realizing that now. They were slow. All four of them, maybe they were a bit more insecure as Ellie was an anxious 1st time mom and they were coming in and out of the nest a lot more because I had to do quite a bit of hand feeding. They were louder and less friendly also.
This baby is so sweet. She loves to be pet, she is happy and confident. Way different than last years chicks.
🙂 we all love her.

 

[Jenn1469]

Also she gets around the cage so well!! I have been pretty impressed with her. I took the nest box out once she and ellie both spent the night out of it and I'm glad I did because she had already laid 33 eggs since March or April and she is exhibiting mating behaviors again but my male isn't in the cage so I hope she doesn't lay anymore.