Longfeather characteristic in the genus Agapornis roseicollis, by Paulo Brito.

What are longfeathers? Is a standard roseicollis a longfeather?

These are the questions that I get frequently in my mailbox.

What is a standard Agapornis roseicollis?

I do not consider myself an exhibitor breeder. In 8 years of selection, exclusively for Agapornis
roseicollis, I only participated in 3 exhibitions, in the three participations I awarded 1st, 2nd and
3rd classified in the most competitive classes. Based on the results and my experience as a
breeder, it allows me to conclude that for each exhibition, there may be different judgment
criteria.

For this article I will designate two types of exhibitions, A and B.

Type A exhibition - Aviculture exhibitions with a high number of birds of different species. For
different types of parrots, sometimes the criteria used are the same between species, the
physical condition of the bird and the personal taste of each judge dictates the final judgment
score that is sometimes made by comparing and excluding birds, rule in general, these judges
are the same judging small and large parrots.

Type B exhibition - Small or medium exhibitions, with the exclusive participation of Agapornis
exhibitors. As a rule, the judges of these exhibitions are also breeders of Agapornis. This type of
exhibitions identifies a set of physical characteristics that will determine what will be for these
exhibitions a phenotype of an exhibition bird or a standard bird. Usually, the criteria used in
these exhibitions are different from exhibitions A. Characteristics such as eyes, position of wings,
position of paws on the perch as well as colour and size of nails do not escape the eyes of these
judges. I advise exhibiting breeders to carefully read the physical characteristics that they
consider in this type of shows.

Why is my bird ranked 1st in exhibition A and exhibition B is not awarded or vice versa?

In addition to the quantity and quality of birds, we cannot demand that the judge of the
exhibition B uses the same criteria as the judge of the exhibition A, another detail that you must
pay attention to, is the physical condition of the same bird in different shows, the stress affects
a lot the physical condition of birds and feathers and parrots especially suffer a lot from it, I hope
that with this you understand and respect the decision of the trial.
What are longfeathers?

The first roseicollis longfeather was first recognized in the Netherlands in 1990. We are probably
talking about a quantitative heritage, it is also known as a polygenic heritage. The same occurs
when two or more pairs of alleles add or accumulate alleles of a characteristic, producing several
different phenotypes. This means that there is not a single phenotype to describe a longfeather
roseicollis, pigments are affected, namely more psittacofulvin compared to the wild type, with
more significant changes in the size, bone, muscle structure, as well as in the size and quantity
of the feather.

For the breeder to understand this mutation I will mention in this article 3 types of longfeather.

Type 1 - These birds present the phenotype worthy of the name longfeather, they are birds with
a slightly larger size than the green wild type, but with more feathers and longer feathers. They
are birds with intense colours with better marking of the masks. The beaks are short and
uniform, well embedded between the plumage of the mask, long, thin paws with dark grey nails.
Normally, this type of bird is very common in type B exhibitions.

Type 2 - These birds have low intensity colours and a phenotype very similar to the wild type
green Peach Faced, unlike type A they do not have long feathers, they are birds with a shorter
and tighter feather, they take on masks with weak markings and little colour intensity. These
birds have a very large bone and muscular structure, wide and very exposed beaks, thick and
clear paws, the nails can present irregular colours.

Type 3 - I consider these birds a combination of type 1 + 2, they are birds that do not go
unnoticed, they are huge birds with a lot of feather and intense colours, thick paws and fingers,
sometimes a 5mm ring is insufficient. One of the difficulties that exhibiting breeders encounter
in this type of birds, is to obtain a mask with good markings as found in type 1, this is due to the
fact of the increase in size that slightly deforms the mask design. We can consider the
longfeather type 3 very similar to the English parakeet, personally and taking the example of the
parakeets and the name of this phenotype could be “Dutch roseicollis”. Breeding between type
3 x type 3 requires a lot of breeder experience, unfertilized eggs are very common, removal of
feathers near the cloaca, artificial insemination, and management of eggs between nests are
some of the techniques used by more experienced breeders.

If we analyse the name “longfeather” as long feathered birds attributed to this characteristic
and compare it with type 2 longfeather, this means that not every larger bird is considered
longfeather, the same can apply if we consider a longfeather a mutation of size, some breeders
may not consider longfeather type 1.

Although roseicollis longfeather is found in exhibitions and much admired remember that we
are not talking about a mutation of a single characteristic, but a mutation of quantitative
inheritance where several characteristics can be assumed, then it will not be the exhibition A
and B or a breeder to determine the phenotype of a longfeather. My personal option of naming
3 different types of phenotypes that fit the longfeather mutation is to help in the division of
characteristics and to clarify some controversies between breeders.
Acknowledgments:
 Edgar Tourita by the guidance and translation of the article into English.
 Dr Hugo Rocha, by the guidance and help in drafting this article.