crested society finches?

[lucyismybird]

I have one crested society finch and one that does not have the crest. They recently had babies and either baby received the crest. Does anyone know if I have to breed two crested society finches together in order for the crest to appear on the babies?

[Conure & Macaw Mom]

I have no idea but it makes sense. Crystal

[tielmama]

I don't know which one carries the crest gene or whatever it's called. I had a crested male canary which mated with a smooth headed female. There were both crested and smooth in the clutch. I'm thinking that the crested babies turned out to be males.

[boothcreek]

The bird just needs 1 crested gene to have a crest(so let say nc= no crest + c= crested, the crested bird would have the genes ncc to show a crest), since only one parent has a crested gene and the other doesn't have one at all only about 50% of the babies will have crests. Since nature isn't even you may get clutches where only 1 or two have crests, or none, or maybe all. All depends on chance.
If you breed 2 crested societies, 25% of the young wont have any crests, 50% will have crests and 25% will be bald(those are the ones who get to crested genes).

[asurademon]

Sounds like it's a recessive gene, though it's possible it's something sex linked. If it is the case that it's recessive you need the offspring to inherit not one but two crested genes in order for them to have a crest.

So lets say r stands for recessive and D stands for dominant, the r=gene for crest and D=no crest.

Your crested bird has rr meaning two recessive crested genes are paired with one another.
Your bird that does not have a crest either has DD, which means they have two dominant genes paired up, or Dr, which means that the bird has both the crested and crestless gene, but the D is dominant over the r, so the D gene shows up in the bird's phenotype.

Now if the crestless bird has DD, then the offspring are going to all end up crestless, because you will always end up with the combination Dr. If the crestless bird has Dr then there's a chance that some offspring will end up with Dr (no crest) and others will end up with rr (a crest).

Which ever gene is dominant will have a greater chance to show up because either the combination DD or Dr will favor that gene, while only rr favors the recessive one. It's possible the crest is a dominant gene, but I doubt it, usually such mutations are recessive to the so called wild phenotype.

[asurademon]

Ugg, sorry for the double post, but I can't edit mine, and just realized my mistake.

The dominant gene has a greater chance of being favored if one bird has DD and the other rr, if one has Dr and the other rr, then things are even.

I tried finding out if having a crest is a dominant or recessive thing, and one site said basically it was dominant, which would mean the above poster is correct that you only need to have one bird with the crest gene. This makes me surprised you didn't end up with any crested offspring, because you have a 50% chance or even greater of having ones with crests (or I guess in this case the result of having two genes paired manifests a bit differently, as a bald bird like the above poster says) if this is an issue of dominance and recessiveness. I'm more familiar with cockatiel genetics, but there are D and r relationships to be found among all birds.

[boothcreek]

The gene is dominant, so the chick only needs 1 to have a crest. If you breed crested to crested the chicks that have 2 crested genes will be bald....
I cannot imagen that being pretty.