large size gouldians

[werty]

Too much feather (especially around the vent area) physically predisposes them to lower fertility. Some heavy feather canary varieties need to have their vent feathers trimmed to achieve successful mating/fertility. The same would probably apply in heavy feathered Budgies.

The breeder I sold my show budgies to thought the same thing

Trimmed the feathers around the vent...and still no fertile eggs

[Craig52]

Please stick to the topic guys, Thanks

Craig

[finchbreeder]

Watch the feather type of your finches and you will not have the problem of "double buffing" the feathers. Put a buff feather to a "yellow" feather for best results.
LML

[Tiaris]

If you select the hens with the strongest chest colour this should prevent double-buffing in Gouldians even if aiming to increase size. Look at some of the European Gouldian youtube videos of bird shows - great type in the best birds but awful colour on most hens resulting from too many buff to buff pairings over many generations.

[finchbreeder]

Am pleased to say have a couple of hens that chest colour looks like a cock till you look at the otherwise paler colours. So am with you all the way there T
LML

[BrettB]

Is it the general consensus that the "buff" / "yellow" feather descriptors that canary breeders use are relevant to finches?
If so , what are the characteristics used to distinguish these different feather types?

Cheers
Brett

[Red]

Is it the general consensus that the "buff" / "yellow" feather descriptors that canary breeders use are relevant to finches?
If so , what are the characteristics used to distinguish these different feather types?

Cheers
Brett

As most non canary species don't have frosting, the differences in feather types do not completely translate. But if you take a feather from the breast and look at the shape:

Long and pointy = probably yellow

Round and broad = probably buff

I don't think this theory in practice. Canary breeders breed buff to yellow to avoid breeding skinny birds (from yellow x yellow) or coarse feathered birds (from buff x buff).

I don't really see the value of using pale or buff coloured birds when breeding finches. Perhaps show zeb breeders might have a use for larger birds?

[Tiaris]

Yes it is relevant. I use it with Gouldians. Buff feather has slightly more frosted appearance up close & "yellow" feather has sharper colour definition. Buff birds tend to be more bulky where "yellows" give better colour definition. Using this principle is very important in improving size/shape attributes whilst maintaining/improving colour at the same time. I find most (but not all) of my yellow-billed black-headeds tend to be buff feathered whereas most (but not all) of my red-billed black-headeds tend to be yellow feathered. Hence, as a general rule I mate Yellow-billed to red-billed with most pairs. This has worked very well for me in improving the size, shape & colour of my black-headed Gouldians & also means I know the genotype of all my birds.

[Red]

That is interesting, I did not know you can get frosting in Gouldians.

Many thanks

[Tiaris]

You can get it in many other finches too (most species I reckon). Bluecaps are a very obvious one where the frosted & non-frosted birds are like chalk & cheese & where both are required for concurrent size maintenance & colour enhancement. Singers, Cubans, Siskins, Cordons, etc, etc.