THE PLUMAGE COLOUR PATTERN HEREDITY AND REPRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF STARBLUE AND GREEN CANARY (Serinus canaria)

Abstract

The aim of this research is to analysis the heredity of plumage colour pattem of
canary in relation with their economic reason as well as their reproductive
performance. The result from this study may be utilized as irnportant information in
relating with the strategic planning of crossing efforts to increase the probability to
have desired plumage colour and valuable birds. This research was conducted in two
methods: (1) A case study method for determining individual homozygous bird and
(2) experimental method. The treatment using in this research are the colour
plumage of canary named star blue and green Data obtained were analysed using X2
(chi-square) method for plumage character and t-test for reproductive performance
of birds. Starblue and Green plumage colour canary of parents were crossed and
their offspring resulted plumage colour types like their parental. The colour of
starblue and green canary plumage is controlled by the combination of two autosom
allelic. Green plumage colour is caused by a single gene (sb) that is recessive to
starblue plumage gene (Sb). The main difference of plumage colour character
between starblue and green can be observed in pectoral part body. The plumage
colour of starblue has light grey and the plumage colour of green has light yellow.
No difierence of reproductive performance observed in starblue and green canary.
Age of first mating was 7 mouths, hatchability was 79 %, pre weaning mortality was
27 %, weaning age was 25 days, day of hatching was 15 days, interval of laying
after mating was 12 days. So, the best canary can be selected through their pure
colour plumage and their reproductive performance.