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Does anyone else have pied Lady Gouldians? He seems very proud of his colors! I'm just starting to understand genetics but can't figure out how this happened? I got him a year ago from a guy in Fla.



Cheers, Teresa

Heard of them, but never seen one so thanks for posting a pic of your bird. Rather unusual coloring.
How is a gouldian pied (all the colours or just back/body affected?)

monotwine wrote:Heard of them, but never seen one so thanks for posting a pic of your bird. Rather unusual coloring.
How is a gouldian pied (all the colours or just back/body affected?)

It's seems to be just his body/back. Here's some more pictures of him-

Yes, you do see pied in Florida. I have several yellow backs that carry the line and have produced many offspring. I will get some pics to post. The pieds will ususually have some white/clear flight feathers in the wings. green theoughout the yellow back, dark spots in the halo around the head. Some have had white spots in the black bibbs on normals but I don't have any normal pieds and have never seen the white in the bib.
As far as the pied mutation it happens the way any mutation does...an altering of the melanin placement.... In the yellows, single factors (this is the only birds I have seen with it, especially the hens) the dark pigment is not totally blocked by the single factor pastel (yellow) allowing the green to come through. More dark pigments can pop up in other places, like the halo and less pigment may be retained such as in the clear wings.
Some pieds will lose the colors upon adult moulting due to just melanistic problems while true pieds will retain the markings and actually get more patches as they age, much like the closely related parrot finches.
When I breed these birds I get half normal yellows and half pied yellows in a clutch. I have gotten pieds from both pied cock birds paired to a yellow hen and pied hens paired with a sf yellow so I do not find it to be sex linked.
Yours is a beautiful bird
You have a real beauty there!

Here's another one I got from him, but I lost her. I don't know what happened - she was just in the bottom of the cage one day.

(excuse the messy perch!)

Oh I can see the pied in her. Very distinctive. Must be honest I prefer strong straight colours more, much like I prefer normal Parrot finches. The pied lines have become so prevalent that finding pure blood is rather a chore.

Thanks so much for the info Candace! I love my little guy and he has 1 baby with a RH LB YB hen that I'm anxiously waiting to see what it looks like. Here's a picture of her with her mom. ( The hen has hurt her leg so I have her under a light by herself with her baby)

I like the pied -- but then I've always loved contrasting colors side by side (no matter whether they are a dappling or a more rigid, solid color edged by another).

Beautiful birds -- thank you for sharing.

Hi Teresa,

I don't think your male would be considered a true pied. Here are some links that would be a true pied.

http://users.skynet.be/fa398872/engoulm04.htm

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11859828@N05/1216199030/

See how the birds are green body with yellow markings as your male is yellow with green markings.

To me your male is like these pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11859828@N05/1216196304/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11859828@N05/1216196058/

And the female you lost actually looks like a Halfsider to me? Because of her head colors? I'm sorry you lost her - she was very unique.

http://users.skynet.be/fa398872/engoulm10.htm

very interesting Misty! Thanks!

So Misty, help me out here, are you saying true pied is lighter colour spots on darker tone, like, yellow on green, right?
I just wanna make sure I understand everything quite right. I have a single factor yellow male, he's in the molt now, but this is the 3rd molt of him, and I started seeing some light green feathers on his back. That makes me confuse, because I don't know if there're something went wrong somewhere.
Can I just call him a pied?

HoangQuan wrote:So Misty, help me out here, are you saying true pied is lighter colour spots on darker tone, like, yellow on green, right?
I just wanna make sure I understand everything quite right. I have a single factor yellow male, he's in the molt now, but this is the 3rd molt of him, and I started seeing some light green feathers on his back. That makes me confuse, because I don't know if there're something went wrong somewhere.
Can I just call him a pied?

Yes, Hoang call him whatever you like ;)

There is much debate about what is a true pied and what isn't. It seems very rare in the US and the only breeder I think that has had what would be a true pied is Winnie McAlpin and Laraine McGinnis. Winnie has or had a green female with yellow flecking as you saw in her pictures and she also had/has a green female with white spots. I don't think she was ever able to breed the hens or reproduce it in the lines. Which is why so many breeders don't think it is a true pied. Think of our Parrot Finches - green bodies with a little or a lot of yellow feathers and as they get older the yellow can turn to white on the wings. When we breed these birds it proves itself in each generation. But with Gouldians it seems like one out of 100 might actually show these markings.

Honestly ask 10 different breeders about pied in Gouldians and you will get 10 different answers.

As for why these green markings come up on a yellow bird - I think it is genetics. As with Winnie's bird her male looks like a yellow bird but is really a dilute because of his genetics. "Rubal is SF P GR with a yellow body, which is usually a diluted green. He has grey chin."

When looking a Teresa's bird I had to think about what he truly was ? a Dilute or a yellow bird?

I don't have much experience with PB yellow bodies because it is the one color I try not to breed for in red head or yellow yead. I do like the PB with BH on a YB though

The first link Misty posted is of a single factor yellow bird...or dilute as some call it. Other countries call it a single pastel green... all the same bird. It is a green bird that has 1 factor of yellow and if this bird has a purple breast then it is a dilute, if it has a white or lilac breast it is frequently called a single factor yellow. All females that have 1 factor (pastel) of yellow will be yellow backed, as females are only ever single factors. Genetically , whatever you call it, it is the same bird.
referenced post
http://users.skynet.be/fa398872/engoulm04.htm
This post quotes that the owner believed the hen was carrying 2 male genes and that gene was not passed on to the offspring.. ?? The hen died so they only had a small sampling of offsprings and in that group, most were males;as stated. I sure hope this breeder follows up with th results of her offspring when bred...
You will also notice in that post that the blues are single factor as are some greens. The normal green backed birds have the black around the head, DF

My hens have passed the pied green markings onto the sf hens and sf male offspring. Also they have produced normal colored sf males (dilutes)
We call them SF pieds around here but I do believe most people consider pieds to be light speckling on dark bodied birds, as in red throat parrot finches. They are green with light feathers causing the pieds. Though most species of finches do not have a yellow form unless it is due to pieing. The gouldian finch is an exception as there is a Yellow form.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of info on pieds as I believe breeders are still trying to understand and breed this mutation.
Mine just showed up out of the blue in a green line crossed with a yellow sf hen. My take on the whole thing so far... for what it's worth in the 3 years that I have bred this line is that there are 3 forms of pied. Green pied, yellow pied, and blue pied.... much like there are different colors of pied RT parrot finches, the green pied and the sea green pied, there just doesn't happen to be a yellow backed mutation in that species.
Interesting mutation to say the least and yes, depending on who you ask and what people call a mutation varies greatly within this country

More thoughts on pieds.......... as I was working in the aviary a while ago...looking at the parrot finches and their pied marks, the goldbreast with pied, the societies with pied, the zebras with pied, and then the goulds.....
well I came upon an interesting thought.
Pied comes from the older term piebald and is a result of leucism....or modification of the pigment cells. The process of leucism affects all color pigments, not just the melanin. When the leucism phenotype blocks all melanin then albinism results.
Since most people consider piebalding to be a lack of color with lightening of the feathers from reduced pigments on a dark bird......
Then maybe when dark patches appear on a light colored bird the term 'dappled' could be applied. This is a common description used to describe dark spots on a light background, such as in a dappled horse.
Though both pieing and dappling are caused by defects/modifications of the pigmentation within the cells , they both occur in light and dark form animals. The term dapple may help as a descriptive phrase to describe the single factor birds with dark spots as opposed to the pied bird, dark ground pigment with light spots of reduced pigment.
Of course the last thing we need is yet another descriptive term to confuse people... lol If I had a dime for everytime I was asked what a YH PB GB looked like and then I showed them one...they say...oh that's an OH (orange head)

So, my guy is a dapple, not a pied.....