# any 1 knows about black wing budgie mutation



## shani

hy
i want to know about mutation of black wing budgies
any one know about genetics of that bird

[nomedia="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma6XylaEAic"]Budgies black wings. New mutation Aviary's josue teques arraiz - YouTube[/nomedia]


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## StarlingWings

They are normals, but have an extremely high presence of melanin in their markings. Selectively breeding for his mutation is possible using parents with progressively higher occurrence of melanin


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## shani

StarlingWings said:


> They are normals, but have an extremely high presence of melanin in their markings. Selectively breeding for his mutation is possible using parents with progressively higher occurrence of melanin


thanks alot. can you tell me how can i get that from my birds?
because some one told me its sex link mutation is it true?


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## crazybirdgal

I think what StarlingWings was saying was that 'blackwing' is not a mutation in itself. Instead 'blackwing' budgies are just normal budgies with lots of melanin pigmentation which causes their normal black markings to become drastically bigger and darker eventually covering the entire wing creating 'blackwing'.


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## tonic

There is a mutation, fairly new, called the Blackwing. It turned up in Venezuala a few years back and you can find videos of them on YouTube. I don't know much about them or their inheritance though, sorry.


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## StarlingWings

A mutation occurs after selectively breeding for a trait. 

If you selectively breed for the mutation which causes an excess of melanin, like these budgies, then you have the mutation (Blackwing). 

Like most mutations, it's probably easier to breed them if you start with a stock of birds that already have the mutation, which makes it more likely that the offspring will inherit it. Although breeding for this mutation yourself is possible, it would take many, many generations. If you're able to acquire birds with high concentration of melanin, then you're probably able to breed for chicks that have progressively higher melanin concentrations. 

I also have no idea what the inheritance is like, apologies.


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## shani

i searched it. there is a guy on usa who have that mutation


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## tonic

Starling, in this case it is a genuine new mutation, rather than selective breeding to create a new look. Spangle, opaline etc were not created by selective breeding, at some point a gene had to mutate into a new one. You can select all you want for a specific look, but it is not a new variety unless there is a genetic mutation that permanently changes a gene into a new form. This is not something we can cause, or control, by selective breeding. It is a random event that we just hope we are lucky enough to recognise and go with. 

You can breed clearwings to have darker grey markings, which is what has been done, but that does not make them greywings. The two mutations have different genes so one can't be the other no matter how much we mix them together. In the same way you can selectively breed birds to look like a different variety, but you will not get them the same as it required a gene change to create the variety in the first place. 

Does that make sense?


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## StarlingWings

Yes, that's what I was saying, I'd better rephrase what I'm saying so it makes more sense :blush: 

What I meant to convey is that once a mutation happens (like spangle, opaline, or in this case, blackwing, which is caused when an error in coding results in a new variation to the feathering, specifically the amount of melanin in the feathers), you can get the mutation to keep reoccurring in subsequent generations by breeding budgies together who have that mutation, and then it becomes part of the established genetic code. 

Therefore when you have a mutation that happens like this, the best way to ensure that it continues is to choose birds to breed together that also have that mutation, and therefore you're selecting for that mutation to continue reoccurring and become more common in the gene pool.


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## tonic

That sounds right! 

This is why I prefer to call the different types of budgie varieties rather than mutations. When you said 'A mutation occurs after selectively breeding for a trait.' it sounded like you were saying you could create a new mutation (being an altered gene) by selecting for certain traits.

A mutation is an event that happens to a gene, usually just once and never again. I find it confusing to also use it to refer to the result of that event, especially a hundred years and multiple generations after that event occurred. A spangle budgie is not a mutation, it is the result of a mutation that occurred once, a long time ago.

However, it is standard for people to refer to the various varieties as mutations so I have to get over myself and adjust....:001_tongue:


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## StarlingWings

True, they really should be called "varieties" since they're the result of mutation and not the actual mutation :dunno: 

I can see how that's confusing for sure.


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