Fallow Parakeet Help

Hello and welcome to the forums!!

Interesting question. Fallow refers to any of three fallow mutations, differentiated only by appearance of the eye. It is one mutation (that is, one mutation at one allele that causes the fallow appearance) and not a combination of several mutations, like rainbow or lacewing.

As Fallows were originally bred in Europe they do appear to be more common there; unless you have a fallow bird you also can’t breed fallows unless you have two unrelated birds split for fallow as it’s an autosomal recessive gene. The problem with breeding fallows, like breeding clearwings, dilutes, cinnamon, etc. is that a recessive gene requires both parents to have the gene while still being genetically unrelated for obvious ethical reasons. You need several breeding pairs to ensure that there’s no inbreeding with future generations and especially if you don’t have at least one visual fallow parent per pair.

Therefore I think the mutation has been slow to expand in the United States among the ethical breeders that are currently active! As a relatively rare and recessive mutation it’s also very unlikely for commercial pet stores or the like to have fallow budgies (like cinnamon, dilute. etc) ✨

Silver Dawn said:

Got it!
Though surprisingly, I have a beautiful Rainbow male I got from PetSmart some months ago. He's now almost a year old. And one of my breeding pairs gave me a dilute 5 months back. I had no idea either of the parents was split for the gene. I got the father from Petsmart and the mother from Petco to be sure they weren't related. Interesting lol.

Speaking of cinammon, I have an English Female Sky Blue Cinammon I traded for a Rainbow baby!

Thanks!

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Rainbows are not necessarily a rare mutation since the mutations that make a rainbow are relatively common, so it makes a lot of sense you could find one at a pet store~

And dilute isn’t that rare either, it’s just recessive, so it’s not as common as dominant pied or something similar.

It depends how prevalent a gene is in the available gene pool; things like dilute or recessive pied are common but just less widely seen than common dominant mutations, due to the nature of their inheritance. More rare recessive mutations in the States would be fallow, hagoromo (these are common in Japan, where they were first bred), etc. Rare sex-linked mutations like cinnamon or TCB have the same inheritance pattern as inos, which are everywhere, but they are less commonly seen, this is again just a reflection on the predispositions of the gene pool 👍🏻

He’s a handsome boy, he looks to be single factor violet and he is not greywing, he’s fullbody greywing 🤝 That means he is indeed a true rainbow as they must be fullbody greywing or clearwing but not greywing.