FINCHforum

I see that I have managed to breed a white gouldian at last. I have bred several silvers, but no whites.

MariusStegmann

I'm curious, what makes the white different from silver? Is there another gene at play aside from blue and the base green/yellow body colors?

No, I am sure it is still the same gene. If you mix the blue gene with yellow, it comes out silver or white. It remains the gene for blue.

Congratulations! Glad to see your perseverance and hard work has been a success- beautiful birds. How long did it take to produce silver and white mutations? Lovely.

FinchLady Basically 3 years since I got my first gouldians to breed to my first white. The silver I managed to breed after 1 year.

Icearstorm I did some research. A silver bird is basically a yellowback bird with 1 blue gene. Because of the blue gene the yellow becomes silver. Ie. Single factor.
A white bird is blackhead, whitebreast, yellowback with 2 blue genes. Because of the yellow, the blackhead gets expressed as white. In other words, double factor bird.

Icearstorm Sorry, please ignore the part of my previous post where it says that silver is a bird with a single blue gene, because it is quite WRONG. A silver is not a bird with a single blue gene because it needs two blue genes to be silver. If it only had 1 blue gene, it would be a blue split and the colour would be yellow. A silver is a rh or yh bird with a white or purple breast. If the bird has a bh with a white breast, it comes out as white. Obviously a blackhead on a yellowbird gets expressed as a white head.

MariusStegmann

Ah, that makes sense. So silver and white are different combinations of head and breast mutations that are genetically both yellow- and blue-bodied (so phenotypically white- or near-white-bodied).