FINCHforum

I'm having some trouble differentiating between lilac breast and purple breast in female gouldians. I feel that most breeders (and websites) seem to focus on differentiating between purple vs. lilac breasted males and little on females. I'm not color blind, but I'm very confused in regards to how to set apart purple breasted females and lilac breasted females as they look rather similar. Is there a fool-proof way to set the two apart for females? If you can recommend a great website to learn more about this, I would appreciate it tons. Thank you.

A Lilac Breast hen is usually very pale pink, just not white, some call it rose breasted.
Here's a picture of a White Breast and Lilac Breast together:

debbie276 wrote:A Lilac Breast hen is usually very pale pink, just not white, some call it rose breasted.
Here's a picture of a White Breast and Lilac Breast together:

whitetolilac.jpg

Wow, thank you so much for that picture example. I completely understand now. The lilac is barely visible in females, and as you said, looks to be a very pale pink. I was confused because the purple breast in females look lilac to me, so I was wondering how the differentiation was made for actual lilac breasted females. I get it now -- for lilac breasted females, it's more of a rose colored breast. Thank you for that wondering explanation. Have a great weekend.

I have one that I "think" is LB. Her breast color is definitely a lighter purple than the other hens, but not as light as the pix above. I will try to get comparison pix.

There are variations of every color in the gouldians. She may be a lighter PB or a darker LB. Do you know her genetic background at all?

Here's another Lilac breast, wish it had a WB with it for comparison:

I have hens with varying shades of lilac
her is a purple breast and a lilac breast...this is a nice shade of lilac


this is a hen with a lilac breast sf yellow boy..her breast is as lilac as his


I also have some pinkish looking ones and some washed out looking ones, but I try to breed for the true lilac color Sometimes with the darker shades of lilac it is hard to tell unless you have a purple breast hen to compare to.

Here's another example from the Erythrura site:
http://users.skynet.be/fa398872/engoulm02.htm

Nice pictures Candace, they are so dark they do look like purple breasts.