# Help defining a color/pattern



## Kastle Loft (May 7, 2008)

I'm getting a blue check off this cock bird. His mate is a blue bar. 

What color is he? He looks check to me - is he red? Doesn't look blue. His sire is a t-pattern dark check. Don't know what his dam's color is yet.


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## dimerro (Nov 23, 2008)

Recessive opal.


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

I don't see splash or red or brown, bot concur with Dina, it is probably some form of opal on a blue bar bird probably with smoky and maybe sooty. I cannot remember ever seeing a bird looking exactly like this bird though, so I could be wrong.


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## Kastle Loft (May 7, 2008)

rudolph.est said:


> I don't see splash or red or brown, bot concur with Dina, it is probably some form of opal on a blue bar bird probably with smoky and maybe sooty. I cannot remember ever seeing a bird looking exactly like this bird though, so I could be wrong.


Thanks for the input. I hadn't seen anything quite like it either so I was a bit puzzled by it.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Recessive opal. If it has an ash-tail it could be Cherry.


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## Kastle Loft (May 7, 2008)

Since it is recessive, is there a possibility that my blue check bird (a child of the bird pictured above) will create any recessive opals?


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## Kastle Loft (May 7, 2008)

Kastle Loft said:


> Since it is recessive, is there a possibility that my blue check bird (a child of the bird pictured above) will create any recessive opals?


Looks like I would need a mate that carries the recessive opal gene, too.

According to Ron Huntley's site:



> Recessive opal as I have stated above is an autosome recessive gene. Autosome means it is found on a chromosome other than the sex (Z) chromosome. Therefore, recessive opal is not sex-linked. Both male and female must have two copies of this recessive opal gene (homozygous for the trait) for it to show its opal effects.


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

I would suggest mating two sibling offspring from this bird if you could. It would give you the best chance of breeding a youngster with this rec. opal coloration.


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## Kastle Loft (May 7, 2008)

rudolph.est said:


> I would suggest mating two sibling offspring from this bird if you could. It would give you the best chance of breeding a youngster with this rec. opal coloration.


Am I right that there is a chance that my bird will not carry the rec. opal gene since the dam probably doesn't carry it?


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

Kastle Loft said:


> Am I right that there is a chance that my bird will not carry the rec. opal gene since the dam probably doesn't carry it?


The offspring of a recessive opal x blue will always the recessive opal gene. 

O+//O+ x o//o => 100% O+//o

If you could get a second bird of the opposite sex from the owner of this bird, you could definitely breed rec opals of your own. If you can't get a second bird carrying opal, breeding one of your own gets a little trickier...


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## Kastle Loft (May 7, 2008)

rudolph.est said:


> The offspring of a recessive opal x blue will always the recessive opal gene.
> 
> O+//O+ x o//o => 100% O+//o
> 
> If you could get a second bird of the opposite sex from the owner of this bird, you could definitely breed rec opals of your own. If you can't get a second bird carrying opal, breeding one of your own gets a little trickier...


The diagram helps, thanks. So to play that out . . .

I will have my new cock bird O+//o mated to a blue bar o//o. That means that 25% of their babies will carry the recessive opal, correct? 

And to know which ones, I'd have to breed them back to their daddy for a few rounds or to each other. And even if I got lucky and mated two offspring that happened to be carrying O+, only 50% of their children may have it?


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## tmaas (May 17, 2012)

You stated earlier that this bird is mated to a blue bar and is producing checkered offspring. That information indicates it's a checkered pattern bird because check is dominant and two barred parents cannot produce checks. Also, it's possible that your new bird is dominant opal rather than rec. opal. Heterozygous dominant opal birds only produce a percentage of dom. opal offspring. If you raise six or seven young from him and none express opal then maybe you can assume he's rec. opal.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Kastle Loft said:


> The diagram helps, thanks. So to play that out . . .
> 
> I will have my new cock bird O+//o mated to a blue bar o//o. That means that 25% of their babies will carry the recessive opal, correct?
> 
> And to know which ones, I'd have to breed them back to their daddy for a few rounds or to each other. And even if I got lucky and mated two offspring that happened to be carrying O+, only 50% of their children may have it?


You have that backwards. O+//o is a bird carrying recessive opal. o//o is a recessive opal. Recessive traits have lower case letters, dominant will start with a capital letter  But yes, mated to a bird that isn't carrying rec opal, will give you 25% offspring carrying rec opal.

Also, another tip, the "+" indicates wildtype. Which would be non-opal. Every set of traits has one "+" symbol which represents wildtype (normal expression, not showing whatever trait). In this case, the wildtype gene in this set O+ is dominant to the recessive opal gene o.


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

MaryOfExeter said:


> You have that backwards. O+//o is a bird carrying recessive opal. o//o is a recessive opal. Recessive traits have lower case letters, dominant will start with a capital letter  But yes, mated to a bird that isn't carrying rec opal, will give you 25% offspring carrying rec opal.
> 
> Also, another tip, the "+" indicates wildtype. Which would be non-opal. Every set of traits has one "+" symbol which represents wildtype (normal expression, not showing whatever trait). In this case, the wildtype gene in this set O+ is dominant to the recessive opal gene o.


O+//o x O+//O+ => 50% O+//O+ | 50 % O+//o - your percentage is a little off Becky ;-)

Good tips though...


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

tmaas said:


> You stated earlier that this bird is mated to a blue bar and is producing checkered offspring. That information indicates it's a checkered pattern bird because check is dominant and two barred parents cannot produce checks. Also, it's possible that your new bird is dominant opal rather than rec. opal. Heterozygous dominant opal birds only produce a percentage of dom. opal offspring. If you raise six or seven young from him and none express opal then maybe you can assume he's rec. opal.


This looks more like recessive opal than dominant opal to me. The easiest way to tell would be to look at the pedigree. If the opal expression is there in every generation, even when mated to unrelated blues, then you can be fairly certain it is dominant, if the opal skips a generation (opal birds born from blues), then you know for a fact it it recessive opal.


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## Kastle Loft (May 7, 2008)

rudolph.est said:


> This looks more like recessive opal than dominant opal to me. The easiest way to tell would be to look at the pedigree. If the opal expression is there in every generation, even when mated to unrelated blues, then you can be fairly certain it is dominant, if the opal skips a generation (opal birds born from blues), then you know for a fact it it recessive opal.


All great information here folks, thanks. One of these days maybe it will stick in my head. 

The opal in this case skips generations. Interestingly, a buddy of mine has a Gr Gr Gr grandchild of the original bird at the top of this post and it look just like it. I don't know how many rec. opals are in between, but according to the folk who have these birds it's "very" rare. I asked if the gr gr gr grandchild had any line breeding to the original bird and it does not, so the second dose must have come from another part of the family tree.


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

Recessives can go unnoticed for many generations before 2 carriers are bred together. It is always interesting trying to trace the genes back generations, if people keep accurate records that is ;-)


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## Kastle Loft (May 7, 2008)

Just an update and follow-up question:

My son of Eisenhower (the bird in the original post) and his mate have had a few rounds now. Interestingly, they are almost always the same.

To recap, my cock is a typical blue check and his mate is a typical looking blue bar. Their clutches are almost always a blue check and a very, very dark blue bar (dirty? sooty?). Most of the blue checks actually have a touch of what looks like the rec. opal look. Since we know the cock carries it and would pass it to some of his children, can I reasonably declare that the blue check in the picture below carries the recessive opal? In other words, since he probably only carries one dose of rec. opal, is it likely to express like this?

The dark blue bar on the left is the nest mate to the blue check, right. Is that dirty or sooty?










.










Sorry bout the crappy photos - cell phone.


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## Kastle Loft (May 7, 2008)

Bump.

Can I tell my looking at the blue check that he carries the recessive opal? It's a poor expression, but it looks like its there.


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