To breed pure finches just as we find in the wild we still have to know something about genetics ! Why you might ask ? While in Brisbane for finches ‘11 I was talking to one of our NewZealand friends about some yellow headed stars he got off a local breeder over there. He was told it was split to red and as he wants to breed red stars he thought he was on a winner , reds are fairly scarce over there .So some one had to brake the bad news to him and it just happened to be me
he was not a happy chappie
. Had he done his home work he would have known yellow headedness is an autosomal recessive gene . Yellow can not be split to red but red can be split to yellow . So the lesson . You have to know how mutations work to have any hope to breed pure lines of birds. The old head in the sand trick just doesn't work. Ask lots of questions and read lots of books never stop learning !
