Aussie Finch Forum

Im not complaining in the slightest.
Bird 4 is YH PC GB cock
Bird 8 is RH PC GB hen (after first clutch coloured up I found out she was R/y)
They produced as I had expected YH and R/y all purple chest.
A couple of these young went on to produce their own young, all purple chest.

Next stage of story.
Bird 8 R/y PC GB hen dies.
So I went looking for a partner for No 4 YH PC GB cock, couldn't find a clear YHeaded hen except for his daughter with Bird 8.
So I pair father/daughter and they produce all YH PC GB for two clutches.
Their last clutch is just colouring up and one of the young has a WC.....
The only white chested bird I had in the aviary with them was a BH WC cock.
I know for absolute he is only BH.
Anyway if he had been the father this youngster would have either a black or red colour head.
I know that for a WC to appear each parent has to carry the white gene, so that means both father No 4 has been split white chest all along and daughter No 18 must carry the split for white chest too.
Is it possible that the white gene could be hidden for that many clutches? To show up in one bird out of 14 youngsters?
It also means that some of the young I sold in 2009 could be split white chests. As their father was No 4 now known as YH P/w GB

Yep, he's split for WC. As for how long it remains hidden, it required a second carrier (his daughter in this case) to show up, if you had no other carriers it would never have shown up.

As for inheritance frequencies, my sole turk cock has raised 9 cocks and no hens from 2 different hens in the past two years, so much for random distribution of gender .

In the latest QFS magazine there is a breeder who has only bred normal PB gouldians for the last 10 to 12 years with the last bird introduced in 2000, this year 2 WB youngsters have appeared, just shows the WB gene can remain hidden for many generations.

He prides himself only only breeding & selling normal Gouldians so was very disapointed the WB gene has showed up and has apologised to any breeders who may have bought pure normals from him.

Im really happy, Ive got a YH WC now.
The frustrating part is I got the cock bird in December 2008 and its only now in January 2011 Im finding this out.
To find out all the possible splits any given bird could have would mean the bird would need to test bred that many times he would need a zimmer frame before you could say for sure what the true colour genetics were!
In the mean time you have hundreds of youngsters to feed and house while you wait for them to colour up.
Mind you, I do agree with letting people know as much as possible about the colours behind the bird they are buying.

this year 2 WB youngsters have appeared

Must be very dissappointing for the breeder . I was a bit dissappointed when I had splits show up after the first season, so for it to turn up after ten years must be horrible. I hope he knows which pair they came from.

Interesting that 1 of the 14 has shown the white chest. It can be frustrating if trying to breed pures or alternately if try to produce the mutation. It would be interesting to see that if this pair are quite prolific (hence a larger sample population) whether the number balance out.

I think desertbirds is a good one to ask with respect to hidden genes turning up unexpectedly - pure normal scarlets he was told. The particular bloodline had not thrown any mutants. I recall seeing the nest box full of anything but normals!!! I think we calculated that the chance of all four being blues was something like 1 in 64! ANd that was only the first clutch..........

In playing around with my pair of split-fawn painteds I have managed to get 11 young to hatch. Being autosomonal recessive theoretically of the 11, 1 in 4 of the young should be fawn - to date 5 have been fawn (not all survived unfortunately) and 50% should be hens (all five birds that have coloured up have been hens) and finally in the last clutch a yellow (another 1 in 4 statistically speaking) has turned up - the first.

I gues thats part of the excitement in playing with mutations - when never really know exactly what you're going to get.