Information about coloured mutations

There are some true coloured mutations of Alexandrines in existence overseas which include the Lutino, Blue, Pied or "Spangle" and the Clearheaded. During some of our visits back to The Netherlands we had the opportunity to visit the aviaries of J. Postema and J. Bastiaans, both bird breeders known worldwide. This experience not only motivated us to continue expanding our collection of breeding parrots but also had given us lots of new ideas while talking to these breeders and improved our knowledge.

Since Australia has closed its doors to the legal importation of exotic parrots, all coloured mutations of the Alexandrine parrot that are in existence within Australia are from hybridising with the Indian Ringneck parrot (Psittacula Krameri Manillensis).

A word of warning: If you are contemplating attempting such a challenge don't go into it half hearted. This is not a project for beginners and you should keep in mind the following points.

You need lots of aviary space to cater for your green hybrid split birds. These need to be mated back to good size pure Alexandrine (preferable the bigger Nepalese Alexandrine sub species - Psittacula Eupatria Nipalansis).

You need to start with a couple of pairs to prevent inbreeding. Inbreeding should be avoided at all costs as often the progeny may develop abnormal feathering or prove to have low fertility or even be infertile.

You need lots of time and money. Experts say that it takes at least 5 generations for a mutation produced through hybridisation to be similar in size and appearance as a pure bird of the same species. It can take at least 3 years and sometimes up to 5 years for a young bird to be sexually active. Now do your sums, if you have no setbacks such as snakes, disease, hawks, rodents, broken wire or escaped birds, and you start now you will need at least 15 years of breeding to get your first real colour mutation.

Extensive knowledge of genetics is needed. You will need to know which colours are sex-linked, recessive and dominant. Ignorance of genetics can lead to a lot of frustrations.

Thorough records need to be kept. This is only possible by permanent identification of birds. We suggest using individually coded stainless leg rings. The aluminium rings will be too weak for the strong beaks of the Alexandrine Parrots and may result in the bird squashing the ring and possibly cutting off circulation to its foot - another potential setback that you don't need.

To increase the result of a breeding program, artificial incubation can be of enormous benefit. The use of foster pairs who are to incubate and raise more valuable eggs and babies is another option.

With establishing a mutation through hybridisation you need to be sure that the size is going to increase. If you take a short cut and breed a split hybrid back with another split hybrid you also acquire lots of maybe split hybrids and small green hybrids. What are you going to do with these? These progeny which are not continued with in the breeding program need to be culled. Selling these unwanted hybrid birds for the pet market is another option but even if sold as pets, people change their minds and will often still breed with genuine Alexandrines for sale. These are undersized birds with hardly any shoulder patch. I want to point out that you need to take care when purchasing such parrots. A lot of people are against mixing two different species as the true species will get ruined if we breed with inferior birds. To borrow a quote from Stewart Williamson "We must jealously guard the genetic pool that we have here in Australia."