Aussie Finch Forum

I had a nest of stars fledge about 3 weeks ago and are now starting to colour up. To my dismay I am noticing yellow feathers on birds from red-faced parents. I had two pair and one cock died and I'm assuming that a bit of wife swapping or comforting went on because they never threw yellows before. Is there a single gene involved with the wild-type red dominant to the yellow mutation. If that's the case then will only 1/4 of the reds be pure? The yellows will breed true I assume. If the stars colour genetics are as complicated as Zebs then maybe I need to give up trying only to have normals in my collection.

As I find Yellow Stars boring in comparison to the Red I have never bred them. However being into genetics, I always have a bit of a look and learn at anything involving genetics even if I don;t want to do it. And. My understanding is if you have yellow showing then both parents have to have a recessive gene for this. Therefor if you have 1 cock and 2 hens and this cock has been with 1 hen over time without any yellow turning up then his regular wife should be pure Red. But he must be a Red/yellow
as must the 2nd hen. This of course means all of his offspring from this regular wife COULD be split yellow. Genetics suggest that half of them should have received a yellow gene. But genetics is always accurate, like flipping a coin is.
LML

I had one pair of red faced Star Finches first clutch 3 babies 2 came out red faced 1 yellow face. The second clutch the same 2 red faced and 1 yellow. I sold the red faced babies and kept the 2 yellow faced. Not sure why it happen maybe it goes back along the genes. Interested to see when they have more babies if the same thing happens.

I'm pretty sure that you'll see more yellow stars as both parents must be splits with the red being dominant. The yellows will breed true but half the red progeny will be splits as well. If mated up to a homozygous red all the progeny will be red but a quarter will still be split.

Thanks for the information on the inheritance of Yellow in Stars. I am still a novice with my finches, I have 2 pairs of Red Faced Parrot Finches, 2 pairs of Stars, 1pair of Cordon Bleus and 1 pair of orange Waxbills. The Stars, Red Faced Parrot Finches and the Painted Finches have all bred a couple of times. The Orange Waxbills make nests and lay eggs but they never hatch, also the Cordons make lots of nests and lay eggs and a couple of times the babies have hatch but they desert the nest after a few days. I feed them lots of mealy worms and try not to disturbed them but have had no luck so far. Has anyone else bred the Cordons and have had any luck with them.

Hi,

I'm also keeping both red and yellow stars but only my yellow's have been breeding successfully so of course they have only produced yellow offspring.

My friend got his hands on 3 fawn yellow head stars, they're still colouring up so were not sure of the sexes just yet but I was wondering if anyone knows about how the fawn gene works

Cheers,
Soph

according to the article below the fawn is autosomal recessive


http://www.aussiefinchbreeder.com/Star%20finch.wps.htm