The Lutino

Ian Fordham

If you visit most of the Championship shows in the UK you will notice that some of the largest entries are in the classes for Lutinos. This ensures that any newcomer to the variety will have plenty of competition if he or she chooses to exhibit.

According to the Budgerigar Society Colour Standard:

• The mask, general bodycolour, frontal, crown and wings should be a rich buttercup yellow throughout, and all areas to be clear and free from all markings.
• Primary wing flights and primary tail feathers - to be yellowish white.
• Cheek patches - silvery white
• Cere a fleshy pink in cocks and brown in hens.
• Feet and legs to be fleshy pink.
• Eye to be red with white iris.

Judges are instructed to penalise the following faults:

• Pale violet colour in cheek patches
• Cinnamon brown spots or markings on back, wings or tail.
• Green suffusion throughout

    ¹N.B. No spots should be visible on lutinos.

The usual attraction to the Lutino is the deep buttercup yellow colour but, believe me, this is very difficult to achieve when combined with the physical attributes required in todays' exhibition budgerigar.

My definition of a Lutino is that it is the Albino form of any Green Series budgerigar. One can therefore, have a Lutino Light Green, Dark Green or Olive Green; Light, Medium or Dark Grey Green; Light Yellow, Dark Yellow, Olive Yellow.

The appearance of the Lutino will be yellow (devoid of all the grey of grey green body colour, black wing markings etc.) The depth of yellow will depend on the shade of colour the bird is masking i.e., a Lutino masking Light Green will not have such a deep colour as one masking Dark Green. It should also be noted that a Lutino masking Grey Green will not have such a bright colour as a bird masking a colour which does not have a Grey factor. Like all Albino creatures the bird will have red eyes.

>From the above, one can see that to produce birds with the desired bright buttercup yellow, we should be aiming to produce birds masking colours that carry at least one Dark factor i.e., Dark Green or Dark Yellow. Two Dark factors would be even better i.e., Olive Green or Olive Yellow.

I would suggest that in all Lutino pairings, at least one partner should be of good colour and I would not use a pale Lutino if I had a better good coloured bird. If one pairs two pale coloured birds together then pale youngsters will be the result.

It should also be noted that today's Lutinos are a sex -linked variety so one would obtain the following results when paired to Normals:

    N.B: In this chart the word "Normal" means non-Lutino.

If you have read the above and still wish to continue, I would suggest the Beginner starts off by visiting a number of larger shows and spends a time studying the birds in the Lutino classes, trying to fix in his mind the type bird that is winning. Also, make a note of the breeders who are winning or always seem to have a number of birds near the top of the classes, particularly with breeder birds. Note who is winning the best of colour awards.

Having done this, maybe visit one or two of the exhibitors who seem to have the type of bird you are looking for and then try to buy one or two pairs from either or both breeders. I feel, if funds allow, that it is better to buy more than one pair from each breeder as it will give more chance of success when it comes to breeding with them. If both pairs breed it will offer some pairing options the following season. I am a great believer in breeding families of birds together, using related birds in most of my pairings i.e., half-brother × half-sister, cousin × cousin, nephew × aunt etc.

If possible, try to buy the best birds you can with the money available, but bear in mind that it is unlikely that you will be able to purchase the complete bird. Buy therefore, birds that complement each other e.g., don't buy all good-coloured but small birds. Make sure you have a good balance between size and colour but pay particular attention to head quality, depth of mask etc.

In the early days I would use all Lutino × Lutino pairings as this produces less waste and I would continue to do that until I was unable to purchase Lutino outcrosses of the quality I required.

Having had a successful first breeding season (we hope!) I would then assess the youngsters produced, bearing in mind that Lutinos can be very slow developers. I would then select the best pairings for the next year but still keep the families together. If I felt a particular feature was missing across most of the offspring the I would go back to the original source to purchase another bird from the same family - but it would have to excel in the missing feature.

By continuing to follow these principles one should, after a few years, have developed a stud of birds displaying family likenesses which will give you a good basis for the future.

Original text Copyright © 1997, Ian Fordham.

• The Albino
• The Lutino
• Establishing a Lutino Stud

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