FINCHforum

I can easily tell apart girls from boys if they are green back or blue back, but I have no idea if they are yellow back

I have a few yellow back young gouldian, they either got white chest or lilac chest, to me every single one of them look like female, can anyone show me how a yellow back male look like?

many thanks

Do you have pictures of your yellow back gouldians that you can post im sure there are many experienced gouldian breeders here that could help you out.
Sometimes the colors get washed out when you have yellow backs and dilutes and it can become a little more difficult to tell the genders.

Here are a couple better looking pics of males.

I guess one thing you could watch for is to see if any of them sing then you would know that you for sure have a male.

gouldian_finch

Cocks have a deeper yellow belly than hens. Here is a comparison.

Cock:


Hen:

Thank you very much for your help, now I even more suspect 8 yellow backs which were born last year are all female. how come???

here are some pics of them

why can not I attach any pics in the post here?

gouldian_finch

They do look like girls, but I would wait until they're fully molted to make sure. They still look to be only partially molted.

Are any of them singing?
Do any of them have long mid tail feathers?

Lets ask Debbie she will be able to tell you why you are getting all females . She is amazing with her Gouldian genetic knowledge.

none of them have long mid tail, at what age male gouldian will have long mid feather?

gouldian_finch

Usually my boys will grow them after they are finished their first adult molt...

Here is an example (not my bird)...https://goo.gl/images/uQwurg

There is an article somewhere about why you get more males or females in a Gouldian clutch, I'll see if I can locate it for you. It has something to do with diet and lighting, and actually the female Gouldian can control the sex of her offspring... let me see if I can find it.

Pictures are not the best but it looks like you may have a couple Lilac Breast males, the belly look darker then a hens.
As Elana said it should be easier to tell once they fully molt out.

Good luck