Pied
Peachfaced Lovebirds
Pied is a mutation
that often creates confusion for beginning
breeders. Pied acts by removing melanin (a dark
pigment) from selected portions of a bird’s
feathers and body. The result of this removal is
that some or all of the bird's feathers will be
either yellow, or a paler shade of green than on
a normally colored bird.
 The confusion about this
mutation arises from the fact that the pattern of
melanin removal is different in every bird that
carries the pied gene. Some pied birds are almost
entirely yellow (photo below), while others might
be entirely green. Most pied birds
fall somewhere between these two extremes,
showing some green and some yellow feathers.
The fact that the
yellow feathers of a pied bird may look very much
like the yellow feathers of the lutino causes
some breeders to assume that the two mutations
are closely related. Actually, although both
lutino and pied act by removing melanin from the
bird’s feathers and body, they are entirely
unrelated mutations. You can not produce a lutino
by breeding heavily pied birds together, nor can
you produce a pied bird by breeding a lutino to a
normal green. Their effects are independent of
each other.
It is possible for a lutino bird to carry the
pied gene, but such a bird will be very difficult
to distinguish from a Non-pied lutino. The pied
acts by removing melanin from portions of the
bird at random, but since the lutino mutation
removes all the melanin anyway, there is nothing
left for the pied gene to do. The only way to
visually distinguish a normal lutino from one
that carries the pied gene is by looking at the
bird’s forehead. On the non-pied lutino, the
transition line between the yellow of the head
and the red of the face should be smooth and
even. On a pied lutino, the line will usually be
jagged and broken.
 American pied is a dominant
mutation, so any pied parent bird can produce
pied offspring, however, the exact mechanisms
involved in creating the pattern of
"pied-ness" are not fully understood. I
believe that pied is caused by a single dominant
"trigger" gene, but the exact pattern
of its effect depends on many other, ordinary
genes. There are an almost infinite number of
possible combinations of these other genes, and
many of these combinations might cause a bird to
not appear pied at all, even if it carries the
trigger gene. By the same token, the
"ordinary" genes would have no effect
on the bird’s coloration unless the trigger
gene was also present.
This would explain why pied birds often have
similar, but slightly different color patterns
than their pied parents. Only half of the genes
that determine the pied pattern are passed on to
the child from the pied parent. This also
explains why pied can sometimes "hide"
for a generation or more. Occasionally, a bird
which looks like a normal Peachfaced suddenly
produces pied young. Such a bird would carry the
trigger gene, but its other genes would hide the
effects of the pied. The bird’s offspring
would have slightly different combinations of
"ordinary" genes, which might allow the
pied coloration to be seen.
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