Moulting

[matcho]

Hy people,
Haven't asked a question for ages but I have 2 to ask.
1. A couple of this years young have gone through the moult but have not done it completly. It is defenite what their sex is but was wondering is ok to use them as breeding stock this year?

2. I have had this season (for the first time) lot of black headed birds. Read 15 hens as compared to 2 cocks. The problem is this....1 of the cocks was absoultey beautiful and gave him to good friend as part of a pair. Didn' mean to as I thought I had 2 definite bh cocks. How wrong I was, I only had 1. So anyhow when just sitting and watching I notice what I thought was a hen doing the "dance". Definitley a cock bird but what's has me perplexed is the chest colour being so light. The blue head ring is not as bright as you would expect but it is definitley a cock bird. So the question is this.....What is it? Beak is red tipped. Just for some other info the bh hens are divided between red and yellow beaks.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I am looking to start afresh this season with just a few birds from last year.

Thanks

matcho

[matcho]

Gee, 27 views and no advice or is it just me?

[Tiaris]

The pale chested one is most likely a lilac-chested one. I'm happy to be corrected as I'm not 100% sure on this & would like to have it confirmed, but I believe lilac is autosomal recessive to purple breasted (normal) but dominant to white-breasted. Is that right??
The extra BH hens is due to the sex-linked recessive mode if you have a mixed head colour flock.

[natamambo]

I agree with Tiaris, Lilac breast also have slightly paler belly. He's on the money with genetics too, pair him up with a WB hen to keep the lilac going.

It's really hard to identify lilac hens normally, which is a pain as I have a beautiful lilac Euro Yellow cock and would like a nice lilac hen for him instead of using a WB hen.

[Diane]

I think if you aren't expecting lilac sometimes identifying it can be difficult as there is quite a range of shades. I first noticed it in the blue lines.
There are quite a few comments in this topic and some pics of cocks and hens to compare your bird to.
viewtopic.php?f=105&t=10454&hilit=lilac

[Craig52]

IMO,lilac is a curse as you can never get rid of it,it will pollute all your white breasted birds in the end even to the extent of hovering around the edge of a good white breasted bird.If you like it,breed it and if you don't you need to cull them and start with good fresh stock.
The blue mutation has nothing to do with lilac breast pollution,it's the WB were the gene isn't strong enough to get rid of the purple and the result is lilac,why would you want cock bird breasts the same as hens or lighter?
When people visited my aviaries when i kept gouldians they were amazed at the vivid purple breasts of my birds and in other aviaries the snow white breasts of the others,anyhow i will get of my soapbox now,so what do others think? Craig HNY

[finchbreeder]

Have to admit to selecting for bright clean colours, does not mattter if it is the head, the breast or the back. Bright and clean stays, anything else goes. So I guess I wouldn;t keep a lilac long enough to realize it was one.
LML

[Diane]

The blue mutation has nothing to do with lilac breast pollution

I didnt mean to imply that the lilac chest is connected to the blue mutation genetically. Just to say that until I got the blue mutation I had never seen a lilac chested bird.