Confused by the colouring if this juvenile Painted

[hanabi]

I have a five month old juvenile Painted that was born to a pair that are of (I believe) normal phenotype:



When he first coloured up he did look a slightly brighter shade of red compared to another of the same age, but as time has passed he seems to have become gradually more orange in hue. What confuses me is that he seems to have a mix red and orange feathers. As I have not seen a yellow Painted in real life, nor seen a clear high-res image of a yellow, I'm wondering whether this guy is indeed an example of the yellow mutation or simply a poorly coloured normal. The yellow Painteds I have seen in images on the web look a little more closer to yellow rather than this red/yellow "vermilion" mix. There are a lot of Diamond Firetails over here with this "in-between" Vermilion colour too. More images of this painted, along with his parents, can be seen here:

http://www.ohmifinch.com/DB/ItemDetail.asp?item=46302

So, in your best estimation, what do I have here genetically speaking? Do you think he will moult out to a normal red later, or become more yellow?

As always, thanks in advance, and Season's Greetings.

[gomer]

Looks like a yellow to me Hanabi. I dont know if thats a good thing for you or not though ? Is there many normal painteds in Japan ? Also what about yellows ? The problem in Australia is trying to keep pure phenotypes.

[Craig52]

In that link, all your birds seem to have an unusual colour to a normal. Imo opinion it is something that you are feeding that changes the colour.
For an example, a few years ago i bought some diamond firetails from someone whose birds showed orange rumps. As this person was not well he invited me to catch up the one's i wanted as well as catch all the rest for him to place in cabinets.
Every bird i caught had red feathers in the orange rump and some had bills yellow/orange/and a pinky red,which seemed a bit sus to me but i purchased a pr with the least red in the rump. As i was in the aviary i quizzed this chap about what he was feed and it turned out as just plain canary seed and nothing else.
Anyway, to cut a long story short the birds i purchased changed back to the normal red rumped/red beaked birds within a month of a good varied diet.
The moral of the story is that feeding just one seed like canary seed and also just plain wheat to parrots will change the colour of birds, i think it is that both these seeds carry yellow carotanoids?? not red. Hope that helps and all the best for the New Year also.
Craig

[gomer]

Thanks Craig I never have heard of anyone doing that before. Thats what make this a great place to share experiences It must only effect the red colouring in feathers then ??

[Craig52]

In green parrots when just fed plain wheat can produce yellow feathers in the green or just fade the green and any red area's.

I paid big dollars for those yellow diamonds in finch swaps and boy was i the chap refused to take them back saying how would he know that i wasn't jibbing him. Part of the bird game i suppose,you live and learn Craig

[hanabi]

Thanks for the replies Gomer and Craig. Looks like so far we have one vote for yellow and one vote for normal red. I always love a mystery.

Gomer, as far as I have investigated we only have normals here, and because of their high cost (over AUS$700/pair) not many people keep them. They are usually imported from Belgium, and I would imagine that yellows and fawns are available there so it should be possible to get ahold of those mutations too (if you have a fat wallet). I would like to produce a nice fawn yellow so if this bird is a true yellow then I'm part of the way to my goal. When I return home and have much more land available I plan to concentrate on the conservation of endangered species, so mutation finches won't be a major part of my interests.

In that link, all your birds seem to have an unusual colour to a normal.

Craig, of the nine Painteds shown at the top of that webpage, six are imported stock (two separate imports over several months) and were photographed on the days I received them (so a few days after they arrived in the country). If they have an unusual appearance it may be with the Belgium stock. The illumination I use to photograph birds may be changing their appearance slightly but I think the colours in the photos are reasonably close.

It's still possible that the juvenile Painted I posted about may be affected by its diet, but the same diet did not affect my other Painted juvenile of the same age, nor my other six imports. Regarding diet, I think I have most bases covered: a good quality finch seed mix (has around 8 different seed varieties), commercial egg food (Witte Molten http://www.wittemolen.com/en/products/dry-eggfood), sometimes with a trace amount of vitamin D3 added (http://www.nekton.de/en/product-reader/ ... a-132.html), mineral block, cuttlefish bone, oyster shell powder, charcoal powder, greens about once a week and a touch of Nekton S vitamins http://www.nekton.de/en/product-reader/nekton-s.html in their water about once a fortnight. I can't imagine anything in the above that could be causing a colour change in one individual but anything is possible I guess.

I have another six youngins', some of whom are starting to colour up, so it is going to be interesting to see how they turn out.

Regarding your orange-rumped Diamonds Craig, it's troubling that someone would feed birds only a single seed variety; if I had to eat only peas for the rest of my life I think I would change colour too

[Craig52]

Thanks Hanabi, it is not normal to have orange and red feathers in them so some thing is causing this. That bird does look very similar to the orange/red rumped diamonds.
On another note, liver problems can cause abnormal colour changes too. But the bird is healthy so play around with it to see if it can be passed on, yellow painteds are autosomal recessive so it's an easy mutation to establish but as gomer said it can become a curse.
Europe does not have the fawn mutation, it was me who developed it here in Australia and passed on to another forum member to establish.

012.JPG

The pink one is not a good pic, infact it's dead

[finchbreeder]

H the majority of your Painteds seem to be an "in between" colour. Breed and observe and let us see the results. You may be lucky enough to have a "tween" colour mutation. Because people tend to sell the colour they do not like, so perhaps your supplier did this.
Craig love the dilute back. The pink would be nice too if it just had a bit of life in it.
LML

[Craig52]

H the majority of your Painteds seem to be an "in between" colour. Breed and observe and let us see the results. You may be lucky enough to have a "tween" colour mutation. Because people tend to sell the colour they do not like, so perhaps your supplier did this.
Craig love the dilute back. The pink would be nice too if it just had a bit of life in it.
LML

fb, actually it was the only pink one that i bred,others in the fawn red birds were a light maroon colour. That pink one i've still got in the freezer as even GMac hasn't produced one that light in colour as far as i know. Bit of topic sorry. Craig

[hanabi]

Just a short update to this thread, my red-orange "bi-colour" Painted eventually moulted out to a normal red colour. Perhaps he did have some sort of medical problem, but he remained red+orange up until his next moult. In any case he seems healthy and is producing offspring with a normal hen, so if he is genetically different in some way I'll at least have some splits.