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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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