Whiteface is an autosomal recessive gene, this mutation does not affect the pigmentation of melanin, but instead removes all psittacin pigmentation converting yellow, orange and red pigments to white. This mutation is known as blue in other parrots.
This mutation appeared as early as 1969 in the Netherlands where it became available to other European country’s shortly thereafter and is currently widely available around the world.
This mutation combines well with melanin altering mutations as well with partial-blue mutations. Pairing whiteface to normal Cockatiels would not produce whiteface offspring and would result in normal Cockatiel strains being contaminated with this recessive gene.
Creamface is an autotomal recessive mutation which behaves co-dominantly towards the whiteface gene, this mutation is an allele of the Whiteface mutation meaning that this mutation moves on the same set of X chromosomes and rest on the same loci.
This origins of this mutation is unknown, it was available in South Africa in the early 1990’s where the first breeders to reproduce this mutation referred to this as phenomena as cream.
Creamface in theory removes 75% of psittacin pigmentation throughout the plumage, but if this were true there would be an even yellow tone reduced to 75% throughout the plumage which does not seem to be the case, where as it seems that the psittacin is removed throughout the body all except for the face where it seems to be reduced.
Paleface also incorrectly known as pastelface is an autosomal recessive mutation which behaves co-dominantly towards the whiteface gene, this mutation behaves partially as a blue gene which means that psittacin would not be removed 100%, instead what this gene does is remove 50% of psittacin pigmentation which gives us a much lighter version of what is considered normal.
This mutation was established and available in Europe around the 1990’s and the exact origins of this mutation is not known.
This mutation is also an allele of Whiteface as well as Creamface gene meaning that they all move on the same set of X chromosomes and rest on the same loci. Paleface and creamface behave co-dominantly towards the Whiteface gene, but when pairing Paleface to Creamface the Creamface gene behaves recessive towards Paleface, meaning that a Paleface bird can carry a Creamface gene with no visual difference ,but not vice versa.
Pairing any of these 3 mutations to one another can be done without concern as in the event of a cfwf pairing to pfwf would result in offspring that produce all three alleles in one clutch.
It is considered undesirable to pair Whiteface or any of it’s alleles to Sex Linked Yellow Cheek, Dominant Yellow Cheek, Orange Cheek and any other mutations that contain psittacin pigmentation.