Hi Hector,
It's only weird because it took a few years to get the bird showing
crest. Actually, what happened is this. Both parents are carrying crest
- crest is not that uncommon in rollers, or in homers either for that
matter. If both birds are carrying a non-sexlined recessive (which
crest is), then this is what happens. You get 25% of the young that are
homozygous for wild type (in this case, that means they are not carrying
crest.); you get 50% of the young heterozygous for crest - in this
case, it means a lot of the young produced over the past three years are
likely carrying crest; and you will get 25% of the youngster that are
homozygous for crest, i.e, they will show it. The numbers are the
numbers. On the average, (and it is an average and it takes a lot of numbers
to make that average average out) for every hundred birds born, 75 of
them will be non-crested, with 50 of those 75 carrying crest, and only
25 will be crested. Your friend's crested bird is one of those 25 and
it took him four years to be born. It's just as possible for your buddy
to raise ten crested birds this year and only one non-crested. It's
all the luck of the draw.
Frank Mosca
It's only weird because it took a few years to get the bird showing
crest. Actually, what happened is this. Both parents are carrying crest
- crest is not that uncommon in rollers, or in homers either for that
matter. If both birds are carrying a non-sexlined recessive (which
crest is), then this is what happens. You get 25% of the young that are
homozygous for wild type (in this case, that means they are not carrying
crest.); you get 50% of the young heterozygous for crest - in this
case, it means a lot of the young produced over the past three years are
likely carrying crest; and you will get 25% of the youngster that are
homozygous for crest, i.e, they will show it. The numbers are the
numbers. On the average, (and it is an average and it takes a lot of numbers
to make that average average out) for every hundred birds born, 75 of
them will be non-crested, with 50 of those 75 carrying crest, and only
25 will be crested. Your friend's crested bird is one of those 25 and
it took him four years to be born. It's just as possible for your buddy
to raise ten crested birds this year and only one non-crested. It's
all the luck of the draw.
Frank Mosca
bravenet.com