Is it possible to reverse Mutations back to Normals

[maz]

Definitely possible, but you would need to keep some of the mutation to test breed back to for confirmation, if you breed a mutation to a split, then you would get 50% mutations and 50% splits, split to split gives you 25% mutation, 50% split and 25% no mutation, the problem comes in identifying which are the splits which are the normals, you then need to test breed all the normal looking birds to the mutation to identify which ones produce the mutation and which don't. All the splits will produce the mutation, the normals will just produce splits. So it requires some test breeding but you can get there in the end and confirm it by breeding back to the original mutation.

[vettepilot_6]

I have a question and its not a shot at mutation breeders (hats of to those that breed them, just not my thing) Is it possible to reverse the process? For example with Javas that are split pied some show white under chin some don't.....my understanding if you breed a heavy pied bird to one that is (supposed normal) you would get 50% pieds and 50% normals or if the (supposed bird was possibly split) would you get 50% pied 25% splits and 25% normal? I know it would take quite a few breedings and you would need a fairly large gene pool to start with.....any mutation breeders care to answer?

[BrettB]

Lets run a little math

Say you have a bird that you think might be a normal, but could be split to an autosomal recessive gene.
To "prove" that it is normal, you could breed it to a pure bred of that mutation.
If the bird was a normal, then you would expect all the young to be normal (splits).
A single baby with the mutation would prove that the bird was split.
But what are the chances of all the young being normal, if the parent bird is split.

One chick : 1/2
Four chicks : 1/16
Six chicks : 1/64

So even if you do a test mating and have 6 normal chicks, there is still a small chance that your bird is not pure.
In fact, you can never prove that the original bird was pure, just very likely to be.
So is it worth it?

I see two problems with the strategy, firstly you can never be certain and secondly you have produced a whole lot of splits when presumable you were trying to breed normals.
That is why autosomal recessives are such a pain.

Cheers
Brett

[Craig52]

Only with a recessive sex linked mutation you can breed normal hens and coloured hens,coloured cocks and split cocks.So those hens can be used to breed back to normals.
I don't think you could ever breed out autosomal recessive mutation,once the bird has the gene it will pop up some where down the line if it mates with a bird carrying the same recessive gene. Craig

[iaos]

Yes. I think it would be possible if you are just dealing with a single mutation. I.E. if you breed a coloured bird to a possible spilt enough times you can see the breeding outcome and say that the bird is not split for that mutation.

However it begins to become difficult and confusing once you are dealing with species with multiple mutations (gouldians, zebs, stars, etc) because unless you get a bird that is (silver aussie blue df yellow white chested etc) you would have to breed the bird to multiple mutations to prove that it is pure (unlikely to be possible in finches due to short life span) and once you have proved that they are pure they will be past it.

I think with birds with multiple mutations line breeding my be the best way to "prove" purity, but this would be just breeding possible split to possible split. Somebody out there with better statistic/probability/genetics knowledge than me would be able to give a confidence level of purity based on the numbers breed, how often you line breed etc. I think this is a bit pie in the sky ramble but theoretically you could get to the point where you could say that you are 95% confident that your birds are pure.

Someone please correct me if any of this is incorrect.

I am currently line/in-breeding my wild type zebs to see if they throw anything funky.

Does this help?

Cheers
Ian

[vettepilot_6]

okay so in otherwords its possible but you could never be sure....Damn..thought it would be a sure thing lol

[vettepilot_6]

Only with a recessive sex linked mutation you can breed normal hens and coloured hens,coloured cocks and split cocks.So those hens can be used to breed back to normals.
I don't think you could ever breed out autosomal recessive mutation,once the bird has the gene it will pop up some where down the line if it mates with a bird carrying the same recessive gene. Craig

So is the pied in Javas an autosomal recessive gene?

[Danny]

The pied mutation is rarely a straightforward mutation. If it was you would breed pied to pied and always get perfect pied. In many cases more than one gene is involved (assuming to subscribe to the gene theory) so breeding out a pied mutation is probably the hardest one to try.

[maz]

most mutations should be able to be bred out but you would need to keep some birds of the mutation for testing, for example a recessive mutation if you pair 2 splits together you would get 25% mutation, 50% splits and 25% normal/wildtype, but the only way to tell the wildtype from the splits would be by test breeding and the best test breed would be to a visual bird, visual X split = 50% visual, 50% splits, visual to wildtype = 100% splits. So it would be a few generations before you could be relatively sure of having normal birds.
Danny when you say that pied is multiple genes, do you think it is one gene with a number of genes that determine the pattern or that there are multiple pied genes, I always thought it seemed to be one codominant gene (in most species you can identify splits) with a number of modifiers that acted on the gene once it was present, I would think those modifiers have no effect on a non pied individual so not genes that would effect wild type birds

[vettepilot_6]

The pied mutation is rarely a straightforward mutation. If it was you would breed pied to pied and always get perfect pied. In many cases more than one gene is involved (assuming to subscribe to the gene theory) so breeding out a pied mutation is probably the hardest one to try.

So your saying its not possible? Or it would have too many variations to bother with?