Collin and Astrid's last egg has hatched. None of the chicks have red eyes, so it is a safe guess that Collin is not split to ino. Statistically, 8 chicks isn't enough to prove that. If it turns out that there are not very many females in this group, then there could still be the chance that he is split to ino and it just didn't show up in this round of breeding. Whether I let them do a second round or not will depend on how many of these chicks are females.
Seaweed and Tiffany have one egg left to hatch. They have only gotten one red eyed chick so far out of seven. Percentagewise, with Seaweed being split to ino, we could expect two out of eight chicks to be inos. So this clutch still has the potential to be a text book case.
Now for some individual photos, since some of the chicks are getting old enough to notice details.
CA2 has dark pigment, which indicates black wing markings. The down is white, which indicates that it will be an opaline. Opaline is a sex-linked gene and since both of these parents carry it, the chick could be either male or female. In clutches where only the father carries it, then only the daughters could be opaline.
This is Daniel and Maude's oldest chick. It will be a green bird, because it has yellow pin feathers. Even though its pigment LOOKS dark, it is actually lighter than the two chicks above. Both Daniel and Maude are greywings, so all of their chicks will be some variety of greywing. The goal of this breeding is to produce clearwings, which have very pale wing markings. This chick is already obviously not a clearwing.
I mentioned above that white down indicates opaline. That is true for black winged budgies. But in mutations where pigment is reduced, such as greywing, cinnamon and inos, even the non-opaline chicks will have white down. So with Daniel and Maude's chicks, I expect all of them to have white down, but only the girls will be opalines, and the males will not be. (Since Daniel is opaline and Maude is not.)
Because we can't use white down as an indicator, we have to wait until we see visual opaline markings on the chicks. Then we will know which are boys and which are girls, even if their ceres look ambiguous.
(Seaweed and Tiffany, by the way, are both opaline, so every one of their chicks will also be opaline.)
Because we can't use white down as an indicator, we have to wait until we see visual opaline markings on the chicks. Then we will know which are boys and which are girls, even if their ceres look ambiguous.
(Seaweed and Tiffany, by the way, are both opaline, so every one of their chicks will also be opaline.)