red suffusion bar??

[Danny]

If I recall there was a comment made at the convention about this and if you breed to enhance the small separation bar, you tend to breed for smaller and duller birds in other respects.

[flap]

Thanks Jay, I was trying to remember what it was called. I think one of our male PB has a very slight one. Yours is a beauty. also love the amount of blue on his head!

[Diane]

.I think its rarer in pb

You are right about it being on WC than PC, Ive seen it more on the WC. I think one of our American members has some of the PC with the suffusion bar and is actively trying to increase it.

[Tiaris]

The red/orange line is a very attractive feature on Gouldians which I believe is more prevalent (or at least more obvious) on birds with a non-frosted feather form. These tend to be a brighter, more intense coloured bird but slightly smaller in overall body size largely due to the "tighter" feather structure. It is just as common on purple breasted birds as white breasted but the white breasted birds are better equipped to show it off to best effect as the paleness of the white breast cannot cover/mask the top of the darker red/orange bar as effectively as the darker purple so it appears wider and also more exagerated due to the more strikingly obvious contrast of white to red/orange.
Had a brief discussion with MF recently about this & he says that birds with this line have a longer & thinner chest feather which only partially overlays the top of the yellow zone.

[Diane]

Interesting comments.
You peaked my curiosity about the "non-frosted" can you describe or show the difference?

birds with this line have a longer & thinner chest feather which only partially overlays the top of the yellow zone.

Do you think this would make them more susceptible to the cold which could possibly be the reason why they are fewer in number?

[Tiaris]

Possibly Diane.
This whole feather structure thing gets back to old school canary (& budgie of yesteryear) breeding principle of "Buff" and "Yellow" feathers. Buff (frosted) feathers are much larger feathers overall with extra long pale-tipped filaments which give an overall larger look to the body size of buff-feathered birds and slightly less colour intensity. By the look of them they would almost certainly provide better insulation to the body of a Buff-feathered bird.
The "yellow" (non-frosted) feather is proportionately long and narrow with just the colour & no extra fluffy pale bits at the end of each filament. These birds consequently look brighter, tighter feathered and generally smaller.
The frosted & non-frosted feather principle can be seen in all species. This is why we constantly seem to find ourselves tossing up whether to select the bird with better colour versus the one with better size and far less often do you get the best coloured bird is also the biggest.
I guess if you take this to the nth degree you could argue that buffer may be tuffer in cold weather. How do you not go for the brightest coloured bird though? Tough call.

[finchbreeder]

There was a time, particularly with canary breeding, when "yellow" to "buff" breeding was recommended. Because though "yellow" to "yellow" would produce a brighter coloured bird the feather texture would be courser. And "buff" to "buff" continually, though producing a bigger softer bird was also producing feather cysts and eye problems. Some of the feathers had become so soft they could not push through the folicles and became cheesy cysts. And the longer softer feathers were getting in the eyes of the birds. Still a problem for some Budgie breeders, as the "buffing" was used to increase size and brow in Budgies and is still.
LML

[Tiaris]

That's certainly been a problem in Norwich canaries and the modern enormous show budgies, but this has come about as a result of continuous deliberate buff to buff pairings over many many generations in these birds over a very long period. When you radically transform the size, shape, and nature of the bird over time to something very distant from the natural starting point other unforseen consequences are bound to arise.
The old general canary breeding rule of buff to yellow matings is a very sound one for most species of birds to combine the best colour features (generally from the yellow bird) with the best size & physique features (generally from buff birds) to try to strive for some balance of the best natural features for each species bred.
I really don't think that the odd deliberate buff to buff pairing (or even a few in row) is going to necessarily going to result in the problems you've mentioned for most species, but your point is an extremely valid one in highlighting that significant physical problems can certainly arise in our birds if we try to mess with nature too much.

[Glenbary]

All bar lovers,
As a very new member, I found the discussion on the red bar very interesting - and a challenge.
It appears in males not females. In my collection of about 100 adult Gouldians it is fairly common, but I have tended to select for it when choosing male breeders.
How is it inherited? Is it a recessive autosomal (not sex linked)character? Pretty hard to do breeding trials when the bar does not appear on the hen.
Any ideas?
Glenbary

[finchbreeder]

Nothing wrong with breeding either "yellow" to 'yellow" to improve colour. Probably the way to improve the "red suffusion" birds. Or breeding "buff" to "buff" to improve size. But it sometimes seems to me that even finch breeders are a little obscessed with size over colour and COULD wind up with the problems that have arrisen in budgies and some types of canarys if we are not a bit more aware. P.S. I am a colour lover in all types of birds. But was a canary breeder 1st.
LML