Can someone tell me what this is?

[Lexyloo73]

Hi,

Most of our Gouldians have finished their moult now, and we've got this lovey little guy and we don't actually know what we would call him. He has a pale purple chest but definitely a male.

Would anybody be able to enlighten us

Thanks

[finchbreeder]

Congratulations - you have a black headed Australian Yellow.
Australian yellow is recessive so both parents must be split for it.
I really like the amount of light feathering he has on his head.

[Craig52]

Not an Australian yellow, it's a cross between Australian yellow and European yellow.
More and more crosses are happening now because people don't know the difference in the two mutations because they can have white breasts but the white breast in each mutation is different mode of inheritance.
Google the European yellow and the Australian yellow and you will find that they are different. European yellow is sexlinked recessive and Australian yellow is autosomal recessive.

[finchbreeder]

Ah that would be why the pale lilac breast, instead of the pure white that an Australian yellow should have.

[Lexyloo73]

Thank you for you're responses.

We thought maybe it was a pied but a black headed yellow is just as great. Haha. Thanks.

[finchbreeder]

Some of us consider that the Australian Yellow is a pied that has been misnamed.
But that is an on going argument.

[Lexyloo73]

Finchbreeder or Craig52, would you be able to tell me if there's any possibility this is a hen?

Because the beak is red I thought it was a male but it's not showing any traits of a male and it seems to be pairing up with another male. Now I''m a bit stumped.

[Craig52]

It's a bit hard to tell as yellow back mutations can't produce black in the beak but can increase the red in the beak for both males and females. Also can tell me what gouldians are in the cage and what colours they are, a picture of them can confirm what you have. Cheers

[finchbreeder]

What Craig said - comparing the birds makes it lots easier to tell.
Though this bird does have a nice yellow lower front - making it seem a little more likely it is male.
However - as I have noted many times over the years - the brightest hen and the dullest cock tend to be the same shade of colouring just to make life difficult.

[Lexyloo73]

Thank you.
We don't actually know who the parents are as they hatched and came off the nest whilst we were OS. Our son was looking after them for us whilst we were gone.
There was a bit of interbreeding happening so we had to split up all the cages.
All our parents are producing yellows even tho we only have one official yellow pair.
So the parents could either have come from the yellow pair
or
The purple breast red head mum with purple breast red head dad, but I'm thinking he may be split yellow.
or
I hate to say it, but the brother and sister from the above parents hooked up and had a clutch of babies. Normals and yellows. They have now all been separated!

I'll try and get photos of the possible parents but they are all on the nests again so not coming out much.