Hybrids or Mutations? Which is more damaging?

[Diane]

Hands up, but I do enjoy trying to create my mutation line too. I also keep extremely good records and single pairs to each aviary so I know who is with who.

[spanna]

Have been avoiding this topic for ages because I can sometimes (pronounced "always") be the argumentative type, but only valid points have been made by all concerned!!

Keeping mutations is a breeders choice, and while they are becoming more popular, I think in a few years time the demand and price of normals will increase, so there will be increased numbers of them around. Some may be split to something, but as has been said, this can be bred out by selective breeding. Will this affect the base DNA of the birds? Probably. Will there be any difference in appearance, survival or fecundity? I don't think so.

For example, at the start of the season I had 2 pairs of YH "normal" gouldians. 1 pair was a related pair purchased from a contact through the forum, another was a very nice pair from a bird store. The pairs where split to separate the siblings, and one pair had one clutch of 6 young (5 survived to weaning), while the other pair (same blood, same diet, same environment) have not shown any interest in nesting. Of the 5 surviving young, it looks like 4 will be hens, BUT there is 1, possibly 2, white breasted. Obviously I want to keep such good breeders for next year, but they may be split to white breasted. I don't personally like mutations, so what am I going to do?

PROJECT TIME! I plan to renovate a set of breeding cabinets and attempt to breed out the WB gene. The reasons for doing so are numerous; they are nice YH birds (hens in particular), they come from excellent parents who had a large clutch with a very favourable sex ratio from their first ever nest etc. etc.. This will no doubt involve breeding to white breasted birds to discover whether or not any offspring are splits, but it is a fun, long term project that interests me. All young will obviously be sold as splits or possible splits, as I am as honest as possible with any buyers, as most people with mutations are!

My point (while long winded) is that I have no problem with mutations, as long as possible splits are sold as such. As to hybrids.... No. The example of breeding a chimp with a human is a good one. Could you imagine????!!! But my brunette partner (sounds like I have more with other hair colours... poor wording!! ) has no problem with me and my red-headedness... Hybrid vs mutation, big difference in public opinion (most of the time... some people just don't like us gingers!! )

[jusdeb]

Thing is too , we humans are funny buggers . Once all the colours have been achieved what becomes flavour of the month ...? normal coloured birds .

[POLAR GOULDIANS]

Thankyou Di,
You are the person aviculture needs more of, someone who has seen the growing problem regarding obtaining "normal" birds and is doing something about it instead off blaming others.

[gomer]

each to their own.What ever floats your boat.I keep what i believe are pure and mutations.All mutations are in one bank all normals in another.All are sold as what they are pure, mutations or possibles.No pure birds are ever mixed with possibles or mutations here and never will be, this is how i think at this point in time.Where I get any new blood from, I can only hope they are doing the same as here.I breed what appeals to me and am not concerned if it is not appealing to anyone else.I believe that there is nothing wrong with what I am doing here.I also am aware of any possible implications my breeding has on the genetics of what i breed.

I personally am against hybrids, but could understand to some point doing it to bring back a specie that man only has had major involvement in eradicating.What I question though is what happens to all the young breed trying to bring back a specie.All of these in between birds ? Is more damage done then what its worth or are all unneeded young destroyed to stop this ?

p.s a good debate is good for aviculture.It brings out more awareness for each to make up their own mind.which was one or more of the questions asked in the first post.

[curlew]

i have down a lot of work on this matter as far as trying to breed a line of no mutated javas the problem is to do this in mast cases you have to inbreed and thats not good for any one. there are just not enough birds out there that could pass as true to wiled forms in our aviarys. there is a lot of people out there that think a princes parrot is blue. education is the key.

[Simba]

There was a Gouldian breeder in Brisbane last year who had been consistantly breeding a line of only purple breasted birds for 10 years without introducing any new stock and yet last season 2 white breasted birds appreared in one nest, so how long do you reverse and test breed before you could say the birds were pure.

Personaly I breed both normal and mutations as I enjoy the differnt colours and the challenge of breeding them. I would never sell normals as pure as I even though I keep records and know what my birds should be split for you can never be sure what's in the background of birds I have bought in and used for breeding.

[GregH]

Don't forget that mutations are just that - the arise spontaneously and their persistence in a population will depend on if it is deleterious, advantageous or neutral. Depending on the initial size of the population and how it interacts with the parent population the mutation may become the "normal" if it founds a new population as happens with neutral or advantageous mutations. Try and sort out rainbow fish from the heads of streams and they all look quite different but as the streams all join up the populations mix and a single form comes to dominate that looks quite different to the founders at the head of each stream but together they make a breeding population but the head population never interbreed and stay separate "species". This is what happens to all species through time. Is it "wrong" to cross them? This is a value judgment when expressed like this - in evolutionary terms there is no right or wrong just fit or not fit for the circumstances at that time. Mixing genotypes destroys the “natural order” but it’s not like this process is directed towards anything other than survival. In an aviary, selection for or against any particular allele is subject to passive or active actions by the owner. In the case of disease resistance it immunity is regulated by the bird's exposure to disease; if there is no disease then there is no selection. In this way a strong immune systems could possibly be a liability in a disease-free environment as any resources directed towards it would be better directed toward reproduction. In the case of colour mutations, the owner takes deliberate action to manipilate the population either removing them or the normals and manipulating matings until the mutant alleles become the dominant or only ones in that aviary. That is a clinical view but if you want a "moral" view? I personally want to preserve the natural ahead of any mutant because I see so much destruction of natural habitat and shrinking wild populations. I want to do my bit to preserve what I believe is everyones natural heritage especially those that aren't even born.