Sexing full red fronted & genetics of same

[natamambo]

Saw a dealer with half a dozen full red fronteds - very nice I must say! - in general equal to or better than the photos in the other thread here.

1) How are they sexed? They all seemed to have plenty of red around the face, are they all males? My (normal) female has nearly as much red on the face as the male but no red to speak of on the chest (and yes they are a pair, they have bred).

2) Is the full red front a real mutation with specific inheritance characteristics or is it like my orange bellied turks where even with two heavily coloured birds the offspring vary somewhat in depth of colour?

[mackstaa]

Go by the chest colour at the dealer and then you can seal the deal with behavious in your aviary.
Hens shouldnt have a vast chest red and Males will sing. They must be nice birds if you are having trouble telling them apart!
cheers

[finchbreeder]

By my understanding it is more correctly a variation not a mutation.
LML

[Diane]

So being a variation, if my emblema cock that has more red on his front than any of his brothers is paired with any female the chances of getting more full red fronts is just random?
I still have his parents but I dont want to split them up just yet as they have at least one chick in the nest. Also if I pair this red fronted male with another female I can then put the resulting young in with the brothers of the red fronted male and try and double up on the chances of a full red front without splitting up the parent birds.
That should give me at least four pairs to run on with.

[E Orix]

Painted Finches can be sexed very easily.
If the bird has red feathers under its bill it is a MALE.
Hen birds will have red chest feathers but that is all.
There are a number of breeders trying to increase the amount of red from chest to their underside of their bill.
I am one of them as my personal opinion is that it makes them more attractive to me at least.

[Fincho162]

IMHO the Red-fronted Painted is not passed on by dom/recessive, sex linked or any other genetic condition I'm aware of................simply a case of un-natural selection........we see a bird with red and select it and line breed it to enhance the red colour.......hope that makes sense. Obviously genetics determines the traits passed on but it doesn't adhere to any rule I'm aware of..........

Why do I think that? Because my 2 best ever red painted simply appeared out of seemingly normal looking birds. And when breeding from Painteds there appears no rhyme or reason to the way full red fronts appear......just cause dads a stunner doesn't mean that all young males will be!!!.........in some birds I obtained from Tamworth the hen had a lot of white on the front and much more red around the face - dont know i that means anything??

From the nest "normal" Painted can be sexed from day one - cocks are chocolate brown and hens are a fawn colour..........however the progeny from red fronts dont appear to hold to that rule of thumb...........no idea why.

Another curious fact for me is that my 2 best ever red painteds have never been able to fill and egg.............each has been with 3 hens ......nothing................each hen then bred successfully with its new mate..............maybe these birds are just plain ugly to hen Painteds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!......still they do look good to me!!!

[BENSONSAN]

There a great bird and so easily bred when they settle down. Ive had more success with them then anything. Maybe on day i will turn out a realy nice red chested one. Totally agree with eorix tho as regards to sexing by under then chin.