Jendays w/ White Toenail

Hey gang-

Would like your thoughts. I've got a clutch of baby jendays where two chicks each have a white toenail. I've never had jendays w/ white toenails before. Could be an indicator of a pied gene or I have also read that it could be vitiligo. Anyway to determine if it's vitiligo or what? I would think if it's vitiligo it might also produce white feathers, or does vitiligo not express that way in birds?

Chick 1 has solid green wings, as a normal jenday would. Chick 2 has yellow speckling through the wings.

Originally I thought a pied jenday would be cool, then it occurred to me it would probably just look like a jenday/sun conure hybrid w/ a white toenail. To the best of my knowledge I've always bred jenday to jenday without any known sun blood in their background. But given the way captive breeding is, there is no certainty that there's not a drop of sun conure blood in there.

Any
thoughts? I'm trying to decide if I should keep these two for future
breeding purposes and see what those white toes might mean.

Dunno. Tell us what you figure out!

At the risk of hijacking the thread, I was using Google to remind myself if Suns and Jendays were both Aratingas. What is with the Wikipedia nomenclature on "conures". As far as I can tell, it is the only widely used resource that insists on using the "parakeet" nomenclature for all the conures. What group is the strong advocate of that?

I also think that whatever 'pied' that may occur, it will just look like a Sunday Conure.

Speaking of Sundays... WHY do people create Sundays again?

"parakeets" supposedly are any birds w/ long tapered tails. . . So are macaws "parakeets"? I've never seen any macaws referenced as "parakeets".

Yeah, the white toe thing is killing me. I'm on a genetics list on yahoo, and I'm not really getting any answers other than "it could be a pied indicator or vitiligo." That's it. I guess some African greys also get a white toenail and there's speculation that might be a pied indicator.

Capt - Call your buddy the esteemed Mr. Voren and ask him for me!

patdbunny wrote:

"parakeets" supposedly are any birds w/ long tapered tails. . . So are macaws "parakeets"? I've never seen any macaws referenced as "parakeets".

Small, slender-bodied birds with long tails I believe. Which would make the mini-macaws parakeets. I know one person who was on a tear about this nomenclature, but I guess I'm surprised there is enough of a crowd behind replacing one generic word with another generic word that Wikipedia is pulled in that direction.

Back on topic, do any species always have white toenails?

I've seen a Meyer's with a white toenail.

So, I know the gentleman who originally imported the turquoise GCCs into the US. He's really knowledgeable and into mutations. I sent him an email asking his opinion on the white toe. He said he had some GCC pairs w/ white toes. All they ever gave him were more babies w/ white toes. He says sometimes that's all the mutation will do. In a nutshell he says it's a matter of do I have the years of patience and the cage space to see if those toes mean anything.

I WAY lack in the patience department, so I think these babies will be leaving for new homes when they're ready.