In 2010 Frans Mulder entered 4 ‘red’ Agapornis fischeri in the BVA Masters. This article was published in the Dutch language in the BVA International magazine from October 2010. On request we translated this article now in English.
Keep in mind that the information in that article is based on the knowledge we had in 2010
The eye-catchers at the show
By Dirk Van den Abeele
Published in Agapornis.info the BVA-International magazine of October 2010
The most striking birds during the BVA Masters were undoubtedly the four ‘red’ Agapornis fischeri, which were entered by Frans Mulder in the N class. Several visitors came up with questions about whether this was really a mutant, how that happened, etc.
First and foremost, one must know that this phenomenon is certainly not new. Bird literature first reported these birds in 1921 and 1926 (Boetticher, 1926; SETH-SMITH, 1921). After that, these ‘red’ birds have been spotted regularly in various places around the world. In 2005, I had already published a more extensive and scientifically substantiated article about these red birds in the BVA magazine. Today I will limit myself to a short explanation of this phenomenon.
We still must answer the most obvious question: whether it is indeed a color mutation, because up to now no breeder has succeeded in breeding this red color according to the rules of Mendelian genetics into his birds. Now that we know for sure that these birds have been known for more than 100 years, we can assume that it is not really a basic mutant. Of course, there will always be a genetic cause, but not like, for example, the blue or ino mutant.
Another question: Is it caused by a diet? I don’t think, because unlike finches, parakeets have psittacine in their feathers and NO carotenoid. And that is important because carotenoids can be influenced by certain nutrients, but psittacine cannot. So, with relatively high certainty it is most probably not a nutritional problem.
So the question remains what it is and that is difficult to answer. We know that it is not really a ‘color mutation,’ but we do not know what it really is either.
Frans Mulder bought, a few years ago, several pale fallow Agapornis fischeri and split birds, from John Larssen in Denmark. John had already bred a few red Agapornis fischeri from this bloodline. However, most of them never reached the age of one year, and as a result, they were never successfully bred further. Same problem with Frans’s red Agapornis fischeri. He has already bred about 10 from this bloodline, but the oldest one barely reached the age of 15 months, and again without offspring.
So one could suspect that this might have something to do with this fallow mutation, and that is possible but not necessarily the case. We should certainly not lose sight of the fact that we also have these red birds in Agapornis roseicollis and Agapornis personatus, and these have nothing to do with pale fallow. On the contrary, in Agapornis roseicollis we noticed that these red birds occur most often in sex-linked mutants such as SL ino and cinnamon. Combinations with dominant pied have also been registered. Where they do differ is the fact that in Agapornis roseicollis most ‘red’ birds get their red color at a later age. In the red Agapornis fischeri of, let me conveniently call it this pale fallow bloodline, they are already completely red colored at the first plumage, and they even remain red after the first juvenile moult.
Yvan Redant, a Belgian breeder, once succeeded in breeding with a cinnamon Agapornis roseicollis hen with red spots, but none of the offspring had this red color. This cinnamon hen did have the normal color at birth and gradually became redder after a few years. André van der Voorn from the Netherlands also bred for a while with a ‘red-spotted’ lutino Agapornis roseicollis female, and none of the youngsters or the later offspring had these red spots. The red Agapornis roseicollis that I have had in my possession over the years have all died without offspring. Once they turned red, breeding was over. I also had two red Agapornis personatus and one red Agapornis fischeri (these were also red from birth), but these birds also died. That was halfway through 1980, and I don’t think that any of these birds had anything to do with fallow at that time because this mutant probably didn’t exist at that time.
The experience of most breeders is that there are two ‘red phenotypes’: birds that only turn red after a while and birds that are born red. Those that turn red at a later age die quite quickly. The motto here is, more red, bird dies faster. Birds whose plumage is already red after birth either regain their normal color or die shortly after their first year of life. The question remains whether we should strive to breed these birds. Wouldn’t it rather be a disease process?
And Frans remains level-headed about it. Despite the many requests from enthusiasts to buy these red birds, he keeps them all. Simply because he knows that no one has been able to breed with these birds. He therefore does not want to sell anyone a pig in a poke if there is no certainty with this red phenotype.
He has already observed these birds extensively himself, and he personally finds that these birds do not react to certain situations like other lovebirds. For example, they react much less alertly to the presence of people and other possible dangers. Even in the company of other birds, they do not really know how to behave. During an attempt to pair such a red bird, this red bird reacted very differently to the courtship behaviour of its partner. The bird cowered in panic and did not know what to do. Note that this behaviour was not observed in the red Agapornis roseicollis, so we should certainly not proclaim that all red birds have strange behaviour. I simply want to inform about the various cases because every detail is important. Hopefully, this may contribute to solving this mystery, because, as you can see, these red birds have certainly not yet given up their secret.
Dirk
Boetticher, H. (1926). Mutant of A. roseicollis, 34, 18.
SETH-SMITH, D. (1921). ‘Stray Notes.'[Mutant of A. roseicollis.] Avic. Mag., 12(3), 106-108.
