Red Devil asked me to post some pics of my Red Gene Lizards that I mentioned in my Breeders Diary.
I’ve been breeding them for about four seasons now. There are only about five breeders here but quite a few more interstate. I bred eleven last year, four of which were hens and I traded two of these away for some of the larger type birds that I was after.
I started with Natural Lizards and bred thirteen of those last year.
A breeder of Lizards from interstate got out of birds last year and another breeder and I shared his stock between us...for the cost of the transport. Some 25 birds each. Unfortunately they arrived a bit late into the season to be of much use. Those that did get a chance to breed gave the impression in their young that there was a lot of red gene lurking within, the Golds (intensive) were a bronzey colour and the Silvers had a splash of colour around the cap. I decided to treat them as primarily Red Genes in the breeding program this year.
So I have five pairs. Two include the hens I bred last year and three include the interstate hens.
The two pics that follow show the bank of six breeding cages. From top, left to right are non intensive red cockbird to gold hen, then intensive red cockbird to non intensive red hen last years young. Second row two year old intensive red cockbird to last years non intensive red hen. He was best Interstate bird at last years Nationals. Next a three year old intensive red cockbird with a silver hen, they have four eggs. Third row, non intensive red cockbird from last year with a gold hen...and a pair of Red Mosaics. All the young should be a reasonable colour but it might take a year or two to get them to the required depth of colour.
The Coloured Club allows RG Lizards(plus all Ivories and Browns) to be shown in the new mutations section. They never win. Mixed clubs sometimes show them with the Naturals, but more often are shown as two distinct varieties. Colour fed Lizards are allowed, but as these are “yellow ground” they are shown with the Naturals not with the red ground birds. There are a few White ground birds about and they are given their own classes in the mixed clubs.
Lizards are shown here and in most other States in box cages. One State is showing them in wire cages. This may well allow the judge to get a good look at the spangles on the back and the cap ,but a Lizard in a wire cage when exhibited is hard to see.
The judging of the lizard is practically the same regardless of the ground colour. The spangles are worth 25 points. The ground colour, its depth and evenness, is worth ten points be it Red or Yellow.
Will put up some pics of individual birds in a day or two.

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Never the wrong time of year to look at birds and give us in the northern hemisphere a taster of whats to come best of luck with your up and coming breeding season .

Reading your post I find it interesting and confusing and I will explain why.

Over here we have Gold and Silver Lizards but this is the point I'm getting confused about. Both Gold and Silver Lizards are Colour fed and as far as I'm aware it is still with carophyll red by Roche This is the same colourant used for Red ground coloured canary's. The colour obtained with the only recognised Lizard in the UK is a orange red appearance Although there are breeders breeding what is called Blue Lizards [White Lipochrome].

You have mentioned normal yellow lizards



The Red gene Lizards how do they compare with Red Coloured Canary's say Red Blacks
I'm asking as I can see clearly see a difference between what you have and what are bred here

Cliff

Lizards are yellow lipochrome birds. Breeders here colour feed to give the orange birds we are used to seeing. Gold = Intensive, Silver= Non Intensive.
At European all variety shows where lizards appear they are not colour fed and appear yellow.

Australian breeders have obviously outcrossed lizards to red ground coloured canaries and have inroduced the deeper red colour

could you answer this for me ninetails,,,when breeding lizard to a red black do you use selfs,,,is the lizard pattern allways recessive to red blacks,,,do all subsequent young carry the lizard pattern,,,and do they breed true when paired back to a lizard or is it fifty fifty ie fifty percent red black fifty percent lizard,,,yours very interestedly,,,johnboy...

GeoffW wrote:Cliff

Lizards are yellow lipochrome birds. Breeders here colour feed to give the orange birds we are used to seeing. Gold = Intensive, Silver= Non Intensive.
At European all variety shows where lizards appear they are not colour fed and appear yellow.

Australian breeders have obviously outcrossed lizards to red ground coloured canaries and have inroduced the deeper red colour

That is really what I'm asking Geoff as the photo Ninetails has put up don't look that much redder if anything what we see over here, but I didn't realise that our continental cousins don't colour feed Lizards

Clearly different PCs give different colours. Particularly the bird on the round egg drawer facing the front appears very red on my beast. No chance of confusion with a 'normal'lizard.

I look forward to seeing the response to John's questions

GeoffW wrote:Clearly different PCs give different colours. Particularly the bird on the round egg drawer facing the front appears very red on my beast. No chance of confusion with a 'normal'lizard.

I look forward to seeing the response to John's questions

I totally agree with you Geoff.
I do find it interesting, Yet hope the british Lizard boys don't see it.

Lizards with red ground colour have been bred on the continent. It is a matter of taste. A real Lizard's ground colour is yellow. There are also Lizards with white as ground colour(Blue Lizards). Again this is open to debate. Ask the Lizard experts.

Red devil wrote:
Yet hope the british Lizard boys don't see it.

Holy S@*te!! they get touchy about blues, this could throw the purists off the deep end

RayC wrote:

Red devil wrote:
Yet hope the british Lizard boys don't see it.

Holy S@*te!! they get touchy about blues, this could throw the purists off the deep end

There are some beautys there i always wondered why lizard canaries are so scarce in Ireland they are a lovely canary. I was asked loads times to pick them up for people but found them hard to get. That breeder sounds like he knows his shit.

Red devil wrote:Reading your post I find it interesting and confusing and I will explain why.

Over here we have Gold and Silver Lizards but this is the point I'm getting confused about. Both Gold and Silver Lizards are Colour fed and as far as I'm aware it is still with carophyll red by Roche This is the same colourant used for Red ground coloured canary's. The colour obtained with the only recognised Lizard in the UK is a orange red appearance Although there are breeders breeding what is called Blue Lizards [White Lipochrome].

You have mentioned normal yellow lizards



The Red gene Lizards how do they compare with Red Coloured Canary's say Red Blacks
I'm asking as I can see clearly see a difference between what you have and what are bred here

Ok, just to clarify the terminology:

Natural Lizards (I dont think I mentioned "normal"). We refer to them as Gold and Silver. They are yellow ground birds. We have the white ground as well. They are Natural colour meaning no use of colourant.

Colour Fed Lizards. These are still yellow ground birds but with the colourant added during the moult. This is no different to colour feeding Norwich or Yorkies. They were quite popular here for awhile, often shown separately to the Natural Lizards. More often than not, the Naturals and Colour Feds will be shown in the same classes these days. I dont colour feed my "Natural" Lizards.

Red Gene Lizards. As Geoff pointed out the Lizard has been crossed here with a red ground bird so that we have a truly red ground Lizard. I mentioned elsewhere that the same has happened with the Border to produce a Red Border Type. We dont all sit around creating our own line of Red Gene Lizards, they have been around for quite a while and there is a large pool of them available. And I guess the purists have the right to be outraged. But the Lizard is a robust little bird and can take most things we throw at it in its stride.

As well as the Whites, I have seen a Cinnamon/Brown Lizard and one of our show schedules refers to Red Ivories but I've not seen one on the show bench yet.

I have one Red Black in my birdroom. I will take a pic of that for comparative purposes.

could you tell us what young come outta red blacks to lizards ninetails,,,i am very interested in the crossing over of the lizard gene,,,ps see post above,,,or do you just breed red lizard to red lizard which would obviously give 100 percent lizards,,,johnboy

johnboy wrote:could you answer this for me ninetails,,,when breeding lizard to a red black do you use selfs,,,is the lizard pattern allways recessive to red blacks,,,do all subsequent young carry the lizard pattern,,,and do they breed true when paired back to a lizard or is it fifty fifty ie fifty percent red black fifty percent lizard,,,yours very interestedly,,,johnboy...

could you tell us what young come outta red blacks to lizards ninetails,,,i am very interested in the crossing over of the lizard gene,,,ps see post above,,,or do you just breed red lizard to red lizard which would obviously give 100 percent lizards,,,johnboy

Johnboy, yes I just breed red lizard to red lizard. I'm certainly no expert on lizard genetics.
Zipdogso just reposted the Rules of Inheritance today/yesterday on the Forum. The Lizard appears in the Homozygous Recessive section with the likes of Opals and Recessive Whites.
This suggests that Lizard to normal would give all young carrying Lizard, and if those young went back to a Lizard then 50% of the next generation would be Lizards.

Ive never tried this. I was surprised to see Lizards listed there. It all seems too easy and I'm personally dubious.
My Australian Canary Handbook suggests that to "outcross to a non Lizard could set your breeding program back ten years". I'm dubious about that too, but I'm thinking it would take a good four years to get the pattern right.

As to the issue re self, I assume you mean a Lizard without a cap? If youre crossing to a red black, a Lizard with a clear or broken cap should be ok to use because the cap is programmed to appear on the head rather than on the rump for example. I do believe that the cap might not be there in year one, but in the next year. Maybe thats what the Homozygous Recessive relates to.

Anyways, I do have a hen split for Lizard doing nothing at the moment. I might pair her up with a Lizard. According to the theory half the young will be Lizards.

Ninetails