Aussie Finch Forum

Juliein,

Thanks, I have been bredding a long time, maybe as long as you or longer!!
I have white brested dilute and one day i will post the photos for you to see.
The new mutation dropped dead because it was different matings to yours.
I never put two double splits together, I always put a slpit to a colour, even though both are double split eg.normal/split blue split dilute/ dilute split blue or vica versa.
I have different mutations to what you have, (shown in the picture)
My blues have been strong for over 10 years, alot of the forum members have bought blues off
me and they are strong and stay on the perch.
it wasnt the blues that were weak, to me it was the australian dilutes or the diffrent mating did not work.
This year i currently have chicks in the nest and when they molt i will take some photographs and show you.
I hope this will answer all of your questions.
Cheers, Flavio

I have heard from some breeders that when they combine the Australian Yellow Recessive with Blue (a double recessive bird) the young nearly always die after or during the moult, so it's interesting that the dilute & blue combination which is also a double recessive bird experience the same problems.

Good luck to the breeders working with the double recessive combinations.

Maybe somebody will breed a Australian Yellow recessive dilute blue (a triple recessive bird) chances of keeping them alive are going to be slim at the moment.

Hi Julie,

Just watched your you tube videos, birds look great, strong and healthy is that the avairy they breed in or do you use Cabinets, Single pair avairies, multi pair avairies ?

Simba
well I dont think its established yet that dilute x blue die at the moult ... a member said it was their experience
but given the rarity of them there would not be enough bred to know this from what I can gather
so far my blue dilute have done the moult almost and still appear to be ok.. the blues are doing really well too
I dont think I would push it to breed aust yellow + dilute + blue /........ myself anyway.
I have an aviary in my patio which is partly enclosed.. all birds are usually kept in there , some breed there
others I breed in a breeding cage... the parents of the dilute blue were bred in a breeding cage .. they
are back there at present.

flavio
you would have been breeding a lot longer than me I would think as I have only been breeding goulds for about 10 years now
but I am very conscientious about it and learn as much as I can about them over the years.. some of the genetics I find hard
to grasp but I know enough to breed what I need to produce something I want
I would like to see photos of your wb dilute.
regarding putting double splits together that was a total accident ... I knew nothing about dilutes .. I was only seeing if
the two parent birds were split to blue ! just ended up with a bonus .
I would say my dilutes are very strong they appear to be and very active... guess time will tell.
to me a weak bird is not really active and tends to have a slight fluffed appearance and never stands tall on the perch.

natamambo
I have no idea if it is sex linked or not , it could be as you say just coincidence but out of the parent birds all blues and blue dilutes
were male only the dilutes were female and male and the greenback were mostly female wb there was only one pb male greenback
so yes as you say I got all those mutations from the pairing which to me was a real mystery at the time !
I hope the parent birds have a good couple of nests this time round to see what male female they produce .
you are obviously very knowledgeable with genetics so have more idea ... I hope they do produce a blue dilute female

Both dilute's (pastels)are automosale rescessive.
Best paring (the youngsters they must be split for WB) is what you say Black G Wb hens.
It's the best comb: to get a silvercoloured hen, beter even is a normal bleu white breast hen.
Pastel hens dont exsist while the gouldian finch hen is Dimorfismisch in natural wildcolour,she takes es whit her in the mutations from.
Dimorfismisme will say she is duller in there body colours against a cock bird.

whis you a lot of succes.

Regards Ger Janssen.

Hi Gerjanssea33,

Whilst I am not an expert on these birds I do know a bit about recessive and sex-linked genetics....if it is correct that a pastel hen cannot be produced from these birds then this mutation (which we are calling Dilute Blue) must be a sex-linked form....I suspect the use of terminology is fostering some misunderstanding....when Julie is refering to a Dilute bird us Australian's know this as a recessive bird.....in Europe a dilute is the what we call the single factor sex linked form.....i may be wrong but i think you are refering to the sex linked Blue which we call the Pastel in australia.....i may be wrong, so i hope I haven't offended you.

This confusion towards terminology is why i keep harping on about refering to the dilute as the recessive form and the yellow back as the sex linked form.

Another comment on the dilute is that it is disappointing that we are having to put so much effort into developing the dilute into a strong form....this mutation has been around for about 50 years....so they should be strong (like the WB) by now.....i believe that the introduction of the Yellow Back made the Dilute less "sexy".....so not enough people put enough work into these birds.....we are fortunate to have some dedicated breeders who have focused on strengthening the Blue and now the Dilute so that we will hopefully have strong strains of both in the next 10+ years....keep up the good work !!!

i recently read with interest in a R Kingstone's book that a pair of WB gouldians were worth $1500 in the mid '80's...today this pair is worth about $60...which is a good thing and a reflection of how strong these birds have become!!

Regards,
Paul

Paul, you are correct. Europe does not have what Flavio calls the Aus Dilute - which is a very good name as it clearly separates the two.

The real issue in the terminology is describing a SF yellow back (Euro yellow) as something different ie dilute or pastel. This is what causes the confusion oh so often.

Paul
I am surprised if the Rec dilute back are not strong mutation, I dont see why they should not be
this question I also asked James when he told me what I had bred and he said they were strong so
I guess it depends on the breeder and their experience etc.
Mine certainly appear to be strong and lively.. I will be breeding all rec dilute back and rec dilute blue and blue
to normal or wb unrelated green backs to produce all split young for strength for then breeding back.
All going well with the mutations to plan that is !

Hi Julie,

Good luck with the breeding in 2012....glad to hear you are pairing your birds to produce splits and then pairing back to the colored birds

My comment about the strength of the dilute refers to their numbers and availability.....they are clearly not as strong as the WB as their numbers are far less...that was my point...that fact that they breed well for a particular breeder is a good thing....take for example the Blues....many claim they are weak...this may be justified by their small numbers compared to say the YB or WB....however if you visit people such as Tino, Flavio and garyh (these are the only blue breeders that I have personally met) you would consider these birds to be hardy as they are breeding plenty of them and have their avairies full of blues.......as Tino keeps telling me...the Blues are not week, you just need to develop your own blood lines and go from there.....that's why I believe you should only buy these birds from people with a proven track record over a reasonable period of time (not 1 or 2 seasons)...that's what I did...and hopefully in 5+ years time I can claim to have a strong blue blood line like the guys i have mentioned...cheers, Paul

From what I remember, the recessive dilutes were never weak at all, possibly just not popular due to the increasing popularity of Euro and Aussie Yellows and of course getting the blues stronger too.