Blue or white breast?

[flap]

We recently bought two uncoloured gouldians, supposed to be WB. one of them seems to have a blueish tinge to it, I am guessing it is an optical illusion. Is there such a thing as light blue breasted gouldians??

[vettepilot_6]

have heard of Blue Breasted never seen one....seem to recall it was recessive I think...

[TheFinchMan101]

If it is blue, it will most likely moult out of it and into white breast next year.
Nice looking bird other than that though!!

[AMCA26]

Most WB i see the breast has that blue tinge in it. Dont know why.

[finchbreeder]

Only whites round here are white with no blue. Look forward to seeing a progress pic in another month. Cause that sure is blue.
LML

[spanna]

The middle photo (with the flash?) looks like a normal white breast, but can see the blue tinge in the other pics. Think you might be right in that it may just be an optical illusion, or the white feathers over the grey juvenile feathers make it appear different. Will be interesting to see in a couple of months time though.

[mackstaa]

There are goulds around which some call 'bad white breast' which is a mix of the white and purple gene.

He may produce unclean breast colour babies as well. Will be interesting to see what he looks like fully coloured.

[natamambo]

There are goulds around which some call 'bad white breast' which is a mix of the white and purple gene.

He may produce unclean breast colour babies as well. Will be interesting to see what he looks like fully coloured.

Lilac breast is a recognised mutation, which can go from a tinge of purple in the white to almost purple. The geneticist in me says that in fact it's not a "bad" white but rather a "bad" purple, similar to hair colour in humans. Red is red is red but blonde to black are stops along a continuum which is not red, likewise with lilac breast I believe it would years of research to prove it though and not a lot of benefit for the amount of seed consumed. However it works, it is certainly multi-allelic.

[Tiaris]

Lilac-chested is usually expressed as a heavily diluted purple. With this bird its definitely a case of "bad white breast" where the purple tint can be seen under the white. It is still a genetically white-breasted bird IMO and different to a lilac-chested.

[flap]

There is no purple or pink in those patches of colour. So it would not be a lilac breast. It will be interesting to see how it develops as the bird colours up and whether it does moult out. Now to decide what to do with him once he is coloured up.