[SftWrmRain]

So I've been trying to figure out these guys' mutations since they hatched in June (1st clutch). Still no definitive answers. Any new guesses?

Mom - WF Cinnamon Pearl (possibly also Dominant Silver)
Dad - PF Normal split to Cinnamon, Pearl, Pied, Lutino and Whiteface

Babies - Two in first clutch, Four in second clutch:

First Clutch - One of them together earlier and one each separate, more recently:


Male and Female PF Pearls - are they Cinnamon, Dominant Silver or both?


Boston - the male of the two. He is now molting out his pearls.


This is Ivy, the female of the first clutch. Before Boston started molting it was virtually impossible to tell them apart. She has slightly more yellow suffusion on her shoulders/wings and other than behavior this is all I had to go on.


Second Clutch:


I believe the baby above is a PF Cinnamon Pearl, and is the baby seen in the last photo when feathering in the rust colored crest.


Another like the first clutch, but this one is split to Pied as well (female).


This one to me appears to be a Normal PF Pearl (male).


I haven't attempted to look and see if this PF Lutino is Cinnamon or Pearl or both (female).



And here is a close up of one of the "Normal PF Pearls" as she feathered in this brown/rust color (not sure on gender, leaning toward female).

So is this baby a Cinnamon? And if so, what are the lighter babies?? PF Dominant Silver Cinnamon Pearls? The male of the older clutch is molting out his Pearls, and his solid feathers are super light as you would expect.

Parents:






Thanks for looking!

 

[roxy culver]

Beautiful babies...I think the "rust" color being seen in feathering could be cinnamon? And the first two look like they might be the dominant silver color, but I don't know that much about it to be sure.

 

[SftWrmRain]

Beautiful babies...I think the "rust" color being seen in feathering could be cinnamon? And the first two look like they might be the dominant silver color, but I don't know that much about it to be sure.

Yeah that's what I'm wondering. The thing is, there aren't really any obvious Dominant Silver markers in either the mom or in the babies, BUT Cinnamon and Pearl tend to mask those markers so ... this leaves us clueless. LOL To me though, if the baby that grew in the Cinnamon colored crest is a Cinnamon, that means the older babies have got to be something totally different, or they have to have an additional mutation of some kind to cause the super light feathers. Some may say it's the Pastelface causing the dilution, but it's not because they also had what seems to be a normally colored PF Pearl and a normally colored PF Cinnamon Pearl as well.

 

[SftWrmRain]

Oh I meant to say too that if you look closely, at least in person, you can see the brown/Cinnamon tinges to the crest and other feathers of the super light babies. When they were feathering in, their feathers were even more Cinnamon looking than they are now. But, once they got most of their feathers in, the lighter color seemed to take over visually and the Cinnamon has become something you kind of have to look for.

 

[tielmom]

All I know is that they are very beautiful=)

 

[srtiels]

OK...In looking at the pix's, by their age now, if DS their beaks and feet would have turned a dark charcoal to black, especially the male, and I don't see that. The male would also, by now, have a very noticable dilution to the center of the wing flights and a noticable dark edging. Since they are PF, the dilution may be from the PF, rather than DS. The PF lutino appears to be just that. If cinnamon or DS, the wingflights and tail would have a beige wash.

 

[SftWrmRain]

OK...In looking at the pix's, by their age now, if DS their beaks and feet would have turned a dark charcoal to black, especially the male, and I don't see that. The male would also, by now, have a very noticable dilution to the center of the wing flights and a noticable dark edging. Since they are PF, the dilution may be from the PF, rather than DS. The PF lutino appears to be just that. If cinnamon or DS, the wingflights and tail would have a beige wash.

But the hen (mom) doesn't have the dark beak and feet either, and you still suspected she was SFDS. I know that the Cinnamon mutation causes dilution as well, and Cinnamon birds are known to have pink feet and beaks. My confusion is this:

They're all Pastelfaces
They're all Pearls
They all SEEM to be Cinnamon based on rust colored feathers. If you look at this picture of the most normal looking PF, you can still see Cinnamon in the crest, and there was rust/brown color when initially feathering in:



So what I don't understand is that if they all clearly have the same mutations, why do they look so different? The first clutch and the first baby from the second clutch look identical. To me this means there is an actual combination of genes that have caused this particular coloration/mutation.

There isn't a "gradual dilution" or partial dilution between the lighter babies and the more normal looking babies, so it doesn't seem likely the dilution is variable, but rather there or not. Again that seems due to a particular gene causing the dilution that the darker two babies do not have.

Have asked so many people that do not have an answer that seems to fit, I am beginning to wonder if there IS something new going on here. Seems unlikely it's a recessive mutation such as Platinum outside of the USA since the parents are unrelated, coming from two completely different locations. That leaves me with big question marks because there are only so many dominant mutations.

Is there anything at all that could be causing the younger (darker) two babies to have what appears to be Cinnamon qualities? If so, maybe the lighter babies ARE just Cinnamon along with PF and Pearl, and the combination is what causes the dilution. The youngest babies having Cinnamon feathers is the only reason I have a hard time completely accepting that theory.

The picture above shows some Cinnamon in the crest of the baby, but the rest of the body feathers, especially the flights look completely normally colored. However the other dark baby looks noticeably more Cinnamon than his darker sibling. I can't explain how not knowing what these babies genetically are drives me crazy.

 

[SftWrmRain]

All I know is that they are very beautiful=)

THANK YOU!! I think so too!! I've always been fond of the pastel colors, so I was especially pleased to see how pale these babies are!

 

[srtiels]

OK...as to the babies crest, it looks not quite cinnamon because it has a slight yellow suffusion to it.

The Mom looks like a DS and does have just a very slight dilution to the wing flights. Hens are so much harder to tell if DS...BUT with the male offspring he should be showing diluted flights after ther first molt if a DS.