White Gouldian

[MariusStegmann]

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

[Icearstorm]

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?

[MariusStegmann]

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.

[FinchLady]

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.

[MariusStegmann]

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.

[MariusStegmann]

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.

[MariusStegmann]

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.

[Icearstorm]

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).