D N A

[Rogerb]

I would like to know all about d n a testing on birds IE to determine the sex can you feathered friends help :???: MR B

[kenny]

hi roger
i will put a few links on here that i think may help


http://www.gtg.com.au/AnimalDNATesting/index.asp?menuid=080.120

http://www.biogeneticservices.com/birds.htm

http://www.avianbiotech.com/


http://www.avianbiotech.com/Pricing.htm



http://www.biobest.co.uk/diagnostics/bird_sexing.html

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bsc/mecol/1998/00000007/00000008/art00013;jsessionid=oo53cqlpltl2.alice


hope these help roger

[Rogerb]

thanks kenny Iv looked at afew very interesting will have to delve deaper to find the info that IM looking for:grin:

[kenny]

hi roger
what is it exactly are you looking for mate..and i will se if i can find it for you

ken

[Rogerb]

hiya Kenny what I really wanted to know was is there a place down here in the south that can do DNA testing or a vets practice perhaps and if so how much stress would the process put the birds under :confused: I can only assume that it is done with a blood sample , as they do with cattle etc , also a rough idea on the sort of price it might be thanks for your reply kenny :D MR B

[chris]

Hi Roger,

i'm 90% certain they won't use a blood sample as they'll need a decent amount to get enough DNA to test, simply because only the white blood cells have any in them (red blood cells have no nucleus and therfore no DNA). last time i looked into this they used a feather sample, which you send via post. the DNA from the cells around the feather base will then be replicated over a week until a sufficient quantity is gained in order to perform a test.

i think the pricing was around £13 to £18 ish per test, with a 99% accuracy

sorry i didn't reply sooner, i wasn't sure what you wanted to know until the post above

Chris:wink:

[Waxbillman]

hello Roger

all you need to do is send a feather in, thats all you need no blood sample are owt

no stress to the birds, and you will find what sex the birds is for certain etc.

well done Chris you beat me by a few seconds

i don't know how much is costs though i thought is was a little more than what you said, though i could be thinking of the wrong thing

Matthew

[Rogerb]

thanks guys I knew that one or too of you would help me out with the problem I have :D ok when is the best time to have a DNA test done IE coming up to breading season , after ,or during or can it be done at any time :?: just a footnote for kenny the daddy ;-) thanks for your post :D

[Waxbillman]

hello Roger

i would say you can do it at any time of the year, as the genetic make up of the feather will alway remain the same

Matthew

[chris]

Hi Roger,

as matthew says, anytime of the year. i would only used a freshly plucked feather though and not any that have been dropped by moulting as DNA breaks down after a few days so any off the floor might have no DNA of any use

Chris;-)

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Roger,

As long as the bird being DNA sexed is sexually mature the test will be possitive.
DNA sexing of immature birds can sometimes be inconclusive?

Paul.;)

[chris]

Hi Paul,

whether something is mature or immature doesn't make a difference as far as DNA is concerned, if it were a test using hormones instead of DNA then yes the birds would need to be mature. if it were possible to take a smaple of DNA from an egg before it hatches you'd be able to find out the sex of the bird before it's even hatched.

Chris;)

[kenny]

hi roger
sorry this is late but it may help if you havent already done something

ken

http://www.theparrotsocietyuk.org./avian-vets.shtml

[PAUL HEARN]

:shock: Doh!

Sorry Chris,

I confused Surgical Sexing wih DNA Sexing.:roll:
Many years ago my old mate Ray had a pair of Long Tailed Glossy Starlings Surgicaly Sexed, the results from the first attempt were definite cock and possible hen?
On the second attempt, definite cock and hen, the confusion was because the latter bird was immature at the time of the first test.

I will try to get my facts right in the future?:lol:

Paul.:wink:

[chris]

Hi Paul,

no problem;)

on the subject of sexing birds, do you have any idea on how to sex white CPQ? i know it can be done by beahviour and obviously if it lays an egg, but are there any other things i could pick up on?

the reason being if i have 2 white hens i have a plan that will enable me to create a pure normal strain far faster and easier. although at some point i will need the use of white CPQ cocks also to test the hens

Chris;)

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Chris,

Generally the best visual method of sexing White CPQ is that the hens are larger in comparison of the cocks from the same strain, but the size method of sexing Whites is unreliable when it comes to different strains.

There was a guy by the name of Steve from the London area who was breeding CPQ striving to breed show quality birds that were of large size and of the best feather quality.
His efforts paid off very well because he managed to breed CPQ of exceptional quality that was the best I have ever seen,:shock: unfortunately he gave up all of his birds because it seemed that he had bred and sold so many good birds that he had exausted his potential market.:(
His cock White CPQ would dwarf hens from any other source, but as I said before cock and hen Whites from the same source should be sexed relatively easily by body size only.

Testing the sexes of White CPQ can also be done by the reaction of cocks of other mutations that are used to Whites, I call it 'the attack or mate test'.:lol:

What does baffle me though is your mention of White CPQ in striving to breed a pure strain of Normal CPQ,:???: please explain your plan mate.

Paul.

[chris]

Hi Paul,

i like the attack or mate test idea:lol:

my plan to test the normals against white cpq is quite simple really. the genes responsible for the white feathers are recessive, therefore any white CPQ has 2 recessive alleles for the white feathers. normals being a dominatny mutation can be either homozygous (2 normal alleles) or hetrozygous (a normal allele and a recessiver allele of another colour). since the only way to produce a pure normal strain relyies on haveing 100% homozygous birds with only the normal gene, if i were to pair such a bird to a White CPQ they would produce 100% normal cpq, all hetrozygous and carrying the recessive white allele. however, if the normals i have are not pure (are hetrozygous) then when paired to a white CPQ i would get 50/50 normals and whatever else the normal bird is carrying.

by doing this i know which birds i am using are pure and which are carriers of other mutations. this then allow the complete erradication of any other mutation withing the genepool by testing every normal i breed with a white CPQ of opposite sex. the fastest test for this relies on a cage and to incubate the eggs artificially, but since i won't be keeping the 'test results' it doesn't matter :lol:

i hope that makes sense

the end result will be a pure strain of normal CPQ, all parent rearing as those i plan to keep will only be parent reared. any bird that a found to be carriers of other mutations will then be passed on after testing, those that are completely normal will be retained. the birds i have now i know are split or other mutations however the young i have might not be, and it will be these and their offspring that get the testing. obviously it will take a few generations to get where i want to be, probably be achieveable within 3 years

Chris;)

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Chris,

Your comments now make sense regarding the Whites mate, but the fact that many other mutations exist doesn't help in your hope of creating pure Normals from the birds you currently have.

How do you plan to eliminate Pearls, Blues, Fawns, Silvers, Pieds and combinations of the previous mutations, from the Normals you hope to breed in the future?

Paul.

[laurab]

Crickey Chris! That was a lot of long words :shock:

[chris]

Hi Paul,

easy mate, using the test method described above, if a bird of normal apearance is carrying say, the pearl allele for instance, then when crossed with a white the offspring produced would be half pearl and half normal so you know that the bird is impure.

since all birds will be impure to start with anyway there no point in this test until the 3rd generation really as you'd end up removing half your breeding stock. instead the plan is to use my current parent rearing hens whatever mutatrion they are, paired with a normal cock bird. the offspring produced will be everything and anything. around a quater should be normals, however all carrying other mutations. since this will be done with a total of 3 different pairs/trios in all i'll then sell on the parents and keep only the normal youngsters bred that year. these will then be paired up to normal appearing birds of the opposite sex for next year.

since the second pairing will consist entirely of normals (all carriers however) you can expect 1/4 of youngsters bred to be 100% normal, 1/2 to be normal apearance but carriers of mutations, and the remaining 1/4 should be mutations. this is all down to chance though so anything could happen:lol:

with the youngsters bred from the generation above i could in thearoy test the lot of them against whites and should end up with 1/4 pure normals, all parent rearing. but to make things easier on myself as i'll be at uni i'll repeat the process again with this years youngsters, only normals will be kept again.

from this almost final pairing around a thrid of the normals i keep should be 100% normal anyway, and the rest carriers. the vast majority of birds bred from these lot will be normals with hopefully only a few mutations if any. the normals out of this lot will be close to half and half pure and splits. since i should have finished uni by now i can then test all birds against some white CPQ. this will require lots of numbered leg rings and coloured so i don't get the breeding groups mixed up either.

eggs produced from crossing with whites will be kept and incubated ( yeah i'm a hypocrite, but who cares i won't be keepign them:lol: ). i'll need around 10 to 20 eggs from each pair to ensure accurate and reliable results. more eggs would be better but i'm going to be overrun as it is! those pairs that produce mutations other than normals i will then know are impure, this will be noted against their ring no. and colour in a book and they will be sold on. those that produce 100% normals from this pairing will be 100% pure normals in theory so i can note again the ring numbers and colours these birds will be retained and paired up to other positive resultes from different breeding groups.

finally i'll have my race of pure breeding parent reared normal CPQ. hopefully i can convince others that any birds sold from this group should only be paired to unrelated birds i provide in order to keep the genepool free of mutations (although they will mutate naturally at some point anyway.. same way as the mutations were produced first time around). still you can put money on there being some prat who doesn't give a damn and messes up all i've done! provided the original birds are kept as they are and continue to breed as i plan to this won't be a problem i hope

now paul if you haven't fell asleep already:lol: i hope that makes sense f not a bit long winded

Chris:wink:

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Chris,

Amazingly I'm still awake mate,:lol: but I'm still not convinced that you will ever produce a pure strain of Normal CPQ within your proposed time frame?:roll:
Purely due to the growing number of mutations, I think your expectations of producing pure Normal CPQ will take at least double the time you consider to be enough, if not more?

I wish you the best of luck though.:lol:

Paul.:wink:

[Waxbillman]

hello Paul,

i don't know about that, given the fact that if they are given the right diet they can become sexually mature at 6 weeks, quite a few generations can be bred in a very short space of time ;)

Matthew

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Matthew,

I'm not knocking Chris's proposal mate, and I agree that the turn around of young stock into breeding stock is a very short period of time.
But the fact that the stocks of CPQ in aviculture have been tainted by mutations for such a long period of time, I don't think the creation of a strain of pure Normal CPQ can be achieved in such a short time frame?:???:

The mutations of CPQ that have been around for ever in my time of birdkeeping are the Fawn and Silver mutations, but since then Whites, Pearls, Blues, Pieds etc and their combinations have emerged and ruined pure stocks of Normals.
The combinations of the above have gone further in ruining pure stocks of normal CPQ, and now Red Breasted and the badly named "Darth Vader" mutations exist in the UK, the recently available mutations and their combinations are going to set Chris back even further.:roll:

Never mind CPQ, is there any chance of breeding a pure Normal strain of any bird species that has mutations in their blood in aviculture? I don't think this is possible.:neutral:

Paul.

[Waxbillman]

fair enough point Paul, after all, us Britains are nothing but a bunch or mongrels

Matthew

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Matthew,

That is apart from Yorkshire where you are all pure bred.:lol:

Paul.:D

[Waxbillman]

:lol: what ever Paul

[chris]

Hi Paul,

i think it should still be possible. as far as i'm aware (although i can't be certain) quail, and most other things can only carry to alleles for the same gene. so i know already that my cock normal is half normal half white, and the pearl hen half normal and half white. the fawns are either a co-dominant mutation (although i doubt it) or more likely from one of the other hens in the aviary that decided to lay some eggs in the same nest site. so if this is correct quail can only carry 2 colour mutations, one they show and one they dont show. i do however think that the pearl mutation is a feather type mutation rather than an actual colour. if you compare a golden pearl to a normal hen the only difference is the feather pattern, other than that they are the same. much the same as you get buff feathering and intensive feathering in canaries ontop of their colour type. taking this into account it would therefore be possible for quail to carry 4 mutations, 2 feather types and 2 colours. either way i still think it's quite possible to breed a pure strain using my idea within the time frame. if i'm wrong however and the quail can carry more than 2 mutations of each type at a time then your right it will take far longer.

there is a book on quail genetics out there somewhere, lucky for me i'll have access to the university of wales soon enough which has at least one copy of every book published in the UK, so they're bound to have it. if i get a hold of the book and have a good read then i should be able to adapt my plan if i have got it wrong, and i could probably improve it anyway.

it should also be possible to breed pure strains of any type of bird given time and a knowledge of their genetics, however it won't be easy. but it does depend on what birds you have to start with. i'm at an advantage in that i've never bred a pied to date and believe my birds to be free of this particular mutation as i've never seen any pieds at the shop where i get my birds from either. still you never know

Matthew,

where i come from supposedly has the highest density of inbreeding in the country :lol:

Chris;)

[Waxbillman]

Chris

i did wonder about that third eye of your's, but i didn't like to ask :lol: :lol: :lol:

Matthew

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Chris,

It is obvious that you have a far better grasp on genetics than I can ever wish to have,:roll: but I strongly believe that that the Pearl mutation is exactly that, a mutation rather than a feather type.

But please consider this mate,;) this mutation combination is very possible, a Silver Blue Pearl Pied, this is a four strong mutation.
Which is also possible by using Fawn instead of Silver.
And I'm certain there are further combinations that can be made by the use of commonly available CPQ mutations, but new mutations are becoming available that can complicate the situation further.

I hope you can come up with a basic procedure of producing pure normal CPQ which can be applied to producing pure stocks of various other birds, this will become the most important procedure in establishing pure stocks of other endangered bird species in aviculture.

All the best mate, Paul.:D

[chris]

Hi Paul,

i didn't know about the 4 combo mutations that are possible, all the more reason for me to get that quail genetics book asap;-)

just had another spanner thrown into the works, the normal hen i have has produced 2 normal chicks and 2 more of those odd ones (yellow & red striped) possible fawns? the good news is i have 2 more normals let's just pray they aren't both cocks as i have enough of those as it is:lol:

Chris:wink: