I went to a small bird show last weekend. They had the usual variety of canaries and budgies. They were O.K. What really gave me the shits were the mutated parrots. They had opaline princesses and blue scarlet breasted parrots. These people are crazy. There is no prettier parrots that the natural form princess and scarlet breasted. It's the same with plenty of other natives . I guess I'm old school when it comes to my Aussie native parrots. Leave them alone. stop the mutations. Am i a whinger or do people agree?
I would wholeheartedly agree. From the perspective of a zoo professional I believe we should be showing our visitors what these animals look like in the wild, not the product of genetic experimentation. Princess parrots are truly beautiful--let's let them remain so!
Mutations aren't confined to Parrotlike birds either- they're in finches and waterfowl too. Some, like the white breasted Gouldian finches seem totally pointless, you couldn't better the wild species for beauty and these are just so unnatractive. And what about pure white Mandarin ducks- why bother? The problem with mutations is that in captivity at least, there's a danger they can outnumber the normal birds so eventually the normal coloured birds become a rarity...
the thing is that people like things that are different from the norm. Personally I like animals in their natural form but for the majority of people (probably not the ones on here though!) a white tiger or a piebald peacock seems way more interesting than a stripy tiger or blue peacock because its not something they could see normally. As Pertinax says above though, sometimes it seems very pointless -- albino neon tetras for example! The other side of course is that for breeders the wierd-looking animals are more valuable than the regular kind, so its in their best interest to breed blue and gold macaws in blue and white or whatever.
I definitely prefer wild type. I find this annoying in snakes too, everyone seems to be breeding different coloured corns and pythons. It just seems stupid.
There does seem to be a big market in the pet trade worldwide for many colours in Birds, reptiles and fish often bringing big price tags, heard there are some Black Galahs flying around near Brisbane.
Colour mutations in aviary birds are annoying but what really chesses me off is when breeders selectivly breed for features that are detrimental to an animals wellfare. An example of this is the larger heads on British Budgies which can cause problems for the birds in such things as perching.
Don't want to contradict myself by saying that I would like to see them when i have been critising mutations but they sound interesting. I working on a building site in Hornsby, north of Sydney that had a pure black magpie that would come on site.
I saw a type of budgie on TV that had curley feathers and it was so puffy that it couldn't eat, drink, crap or see properly and it couldn't fly either. It needed around the clock attention to keep it alive. i felt so sorry for it.
I hate the deliberate keeping and breeding of mutants - but it's what people have always done with animals. Look at the poor goldfish and what has been done to it. Actually fishkeepers are probably the worst offenders - people seem to be determined to do their worst to magnificent cichlids like discus and oscars and the appalling cross-bred and deformed 'parrot' cichlids and 'flower horns' truly disgust me. The only positive I can find is that Darwin learned a lot from the different varieties of the domestic pigeon. Alan
I'm going to be very politically incorrect here and you're all going to hate me, but as an aviculturist I can't be a hypocrite and say I dislike colour mutations of birds, because I breed them. I agree that the natural wild-type should be preserved at all costs, and sensible breeders of mutations cross back to them throughout the breeding program to keep their birds healthy and to avoid too much in-breeding. But........ Jade Red-collared Lorikeets! Pastel Silver and Blue Lacewing Indian Ringnecks! Aqua Lutino Rainbow Lorikeets! Violet Masked Lovebirds! Opaline Redrumps! Ah, it does my old heart good to see them! My descent into such depravity started about ten or twelve years ago when I innocently bought a pair of normal looking Fischer's Lovebirds from a breeder. When they started to breed, the variety of babies was amazing! Those parents were apparently "split" for a whole lot of mutations. Some of the young were normal looking, but from the same clutches of eggs came blues, limes, lutinos and even two albinos! A rainbow of beautiful little birds. Since then I've been lost to the Dark Side.
If there's one mutation which I'd agree is more beautiful than the original form, I think it would be the Blue Ringneck Parakeet...
Actually, I would add that I think different colour mutations in domestic animals, be they mammals and birds are fine (as long as they not infringing on the animal's ability to feed/move etc.) We did used to keep fancy chicken's and I don't see anything wrong with that. Selective breeding in domestic animals seems OK, since that's how they were domesticated in the first place.
mutation birds Well everyone has different views on EVERYTHING??? So where to stand where to stand.... my beliefs are somewhere in the middle! i personally breed birds, a few mutations and mostly natural types. the view that all mutations are wrong is just ludicrist - the whole reason nature makes 'mutants' is to see where that genotype lives on and reproduces, natural mutations live and do breed in the wild - many called "morphs" or "Phase" LOL - not a mutation, i dont know if White lions are a mutation or sub species or whatever - however they have originated from a tawny and lived on in the wild quite happily (until humans). Morphs occur in many native birds such as bush thick knees, birds of prey (raptors and owls), different colored heads on gouldian finches (black, red, orange), and in reptiles naturally occuring black and brown phase diamond pythins exist, and red, orange, grey, yellow phase bearded dragons occur in the wild. my problem with captive birds and reptiles is that it is very hard nowdays to go out to a pet shop and buy a pair of NATURAL GREEN INDIAN RINGNECKS. 99% of them are split to blue or yellow or both, or cinnamon, or lacewing, or whatever. One of the most common mutations is blue and it is ressesive gene meaning both males and females carry the gene - and lutino (yellow) is sex linked which means only green males carry the gene, so wow you will get a pure green girl - however many females then have the blue gene - so you cant win. I believe this is now very common with budgies, red rump parrots, eastern rosellas, princess parrots, turquosine parrots, zebra finches, benglese mankin, java sparrow, cockatiels, quaker parrots and lovebird varieties. eventully reptile collections will end up much the same. That budgie mentioned above should be able to live a life like that if the person is able to properly cater for his needs, many domestic animals have extravigent needs to thrive - ie. persian cats - brushing, clipping, wiping eyes, nose, prone to cat flu and PKN, however if you can provide an appropirate home for that animal. Angora rabbits, brushing daily (usually more than once), clipping, nail clipping etc.. you gat the idea. However if that budgie is in obvisous pain it should be euthanasied. i personally have seen one of these budgies in the flesh, they are really interesting and very wierd. Albino mutations occur far and wide in all tpes of speceis - debaitable weather good idea for captive breeding them, many zoos in Australia exhibit albino speciemens, inc Kookaburras, Tammar Wallabies, Red Roos, Wallaroos, buffalow, parrots & other aviary birds, blue tongue lizards, corn snakes. Hypermelanistic mutations are also displayed at zoos, prime exaple Black panther (leopard or jaguar), Black blue tongue lizards, corn snakes, Leucistic Mutations also found in zoos, white lions, crocodiles, possums (golden). Other wierd mutations displayed in zoos in australasia - white and cinnamon tigers, blue magpie, pied black swan, cinnamon and pied common wombats, white deer, albino chinchillas and albino hedgehogs, koala with blue eyes, albino koala (amercia) had one in australia in the 1970s... Hybreds are also exhibited in australasian zoos - wheather these are politcally correct or not also debaitable..... Tigon (Tiger was father and mother was a lion) at canberra (had two), Corella x Galahs at featherdale, several tiger sub species hybreds. Food for thought - im keen to know more on others views?
