FINCHforum

Hi everyone

I have 2 split to blue gouldian. I didnt even know they were split to blue until their first successful clutch. I don't think the people I got them from were even aware of it either. They surprised me with one blue chick. I was very excited as i was just hoping for healthy normal babies. I felt very lucky. I am wondering if all the babies in every clutch will either be visibly blue and split to blue? Or is there the chance that some of the green backs will just be normal with no hidden blue gene? I've read a lot on gouldian genetics and some sites say there's a chance for just normals and others say all green backs will be split. So which is it? Not that it matters....I'm just curious and trying to understand everything about genetics.

Lucky you

Unfortunately, the only way to know whether the babies are split for blue would to confirm the same way that you did. To breed them.

The only time that we can be guaranteed that babies will be /blue is if one parent is blue and the other is a confirmed /blue.

With two birds that are carriers for a recessive mutation you have a 25% of having an affected bird (blue) and 50% chance of having a carrier bird (/blue) and a 25% chance of having a bird that does not carry the trait. No way to know without breeding which are split and which dont carry anything.
Lori

You will get normals, split to blue and blue chicks from that pair.

You can also try inputting the parents color scheme into this site and see what comes out.
http://www.gouldianfinches.eu/en/geneti ... a/english/
w/o being into genetics like some of the folks here, that I how I figure out what the chicks will be.

BTW, that is why I breed BB to /BB, that way I KNOW that any GB is really a GB/BB. I don't have to guess or breed the GB bird to figure out if it is /BB or not.

Thanks everyone! All your input has been most helpful!