Help with identifying two Gouldian finches

[hanabi]

Hello all. This is my first post and I'd like to give a big thank you to all those who have provided such helpful replies to questions from newbies like me. I'm completely new to this hobby but I am already hopelessly hooked and have spent the past month reading as much as a I can about finches in general and Gouldians in particular. I find their genetics complicated but I love a challenge and have started "rewiring the synapses" to help remember all the possible phenotypes and their associated genetics. I'm close to finishing my first ... cage? ... mini aviary? I'm not sure of the correct term for something that is 1m (l) x 0.6m (d) x 1m (h) (that's about 40 x 24 x 40 inches), but in any case I think it should comfortably house a pair of Gouldians.

I'm from Australia but have lived in Japan for the last 15 years, working as a researcher and lecturer at a university. As other members from Japan may have already mentioned the finch scene here is very limited with pet shops usually selling only four or five of the most common species, if any at all. Rarer species can be purchased from breeders but there appears to be few of those here and, because it is now illegal to ship live birds (only counter-sales here now unless you have a breeder/seller licence) one is forced to travel long distances at quite an expense, making the purchase of one of two birds cost-prohibitive.

To cut a long story short, I was starting to wonder whether I should give up on this pass-time when I came across an owner who is selling two Gouldians, and I nearly fell off my perch when I noticed the owner lives only about five minutes walk from my humble abode. Surely this must be fate, yes? The seller unfortunately provides little information about the two: two photos and their age (born in Autumn 2014, so I guess they are about a year old). This is where you guys come in: I hope to breed some of the numerous colour variations in the future, so correct "genetic classification"(?) of each bird that I own is important to me. I am a newbie and want to get things right, so would you mind helping me classify these two beauties? I enjoy all the "help me ID my Gouldian" posts that I find in the forum, and try to work out the ID before I read the expert replies, so I'm going to put myself to the test here and give you my best, albeit poor, educated guess.

I'm guessing the red-faced yellow is a male (strong colours and a good amount of red on the beak), so:

Red faced White Breasted Yellow body male.
Face:
Genetically he could be DF red, or red/black, and he may also be SF yellow (or carry 0 yellow genes), but not DF yellow (otherwise he would have a yellow face).
Chest:
White, so must be DF white, and thus the body colour cannot include dilute or pastel.
Body:
Yellow, so DF yellow or possibly SF yellow (although no blue outline around the face, so maybe not?). He may have either 0 or 1 blue genes but not 2 (I am not clear on the possibility of SF blue here. If SF blue, wouldn't the red in the face be salmon, or does that only occur for DF blue? finchinfo.com is not clear to me on this point).

I'm thinking the green-bodied bird is a female due to the black-ish beak and paler colouring, but there is a little red on the beak too.... Assuming a female:

Face:
????? Is that what you call a dirty red face? So genetically red (SF when female), or red/yellow (but not DF yellow).
Chest:
White, so must be DF white.
Body:
Green, so genetically the possibilities are only green (SF when female). DF blue is not possible, but I think SF blue is(?).

So, that is my educated guess. I wonder how close I got and whether I missed any gene combinations? Oh, and does this pair look to be about a year old?

Thanks in advance for any replies. Cheers from Japan.

Ross

[Sally]

Welcome to the forum! I'm no good at identifying Gouldians, but we have other members who should be able to help you. Too bad you are so restricted in purchasing birds in Japan, but kudos to you for keeping at it. What other birds do you have? That cage is what I call a flight cage and should be perfect for a pair of Gouldians. There's lots of good reading at www.finchinfo.com, where you will find many articles on finch care and especially the Gouldian finch.

[lovezebs]

hanabi

Congratulations on your beautiful new birds, and hello from Canada.

It's sad, that birds are so limited in Japan. Is it expensive to get a special breeder license, so that you could order different birds?

In regards to genetic information, you need our Debbie ( debbie276 ) She'll be able to tell you more about these guys, than anyobe else in here.

Best of luck with your new beauties.

[DanteD716]

Beautiful pair indeed, and welcome to the forum! I'd say yellow male, green female... Although she does have nice colors, I've never seen a male with such a dirty mask. So you have a RH/WB/GB female, and RH/WB/YB male... It's been a while since I've worked with gouldians but I do know that all chicks will be WB, and you can get yellow hens and Sfy males. Now if there is any hidden splits, we won't knew until there's chicks!

[debbie276]

Male is RH.WB DF Pastel
Hen is RH.WB Green

You are correct about your hen being RH and possibly split to YH also only WB. She could also be split to Blue.

The male can be split to BH (Black Head) or YH (Yellow Head) and only WB (White Breast)
Looks to be a DF Pastel to me in the picture. If he was SF Pastel then you would see more grey then white in the chin and more blue tint around the head color. He can also be split to Blue, there is no visual way to know a split to Blue bird.

"thus the body colour cannot include dilute or pastel" dilute and pastel if I'm understanding how you are using those terms are made up names and not genetically correct. In australia there is a true dilute that is nothing genetically like the "dilutes" in the US. Here people might call SF Pastel AKA SF Yellow a "dilute" if the bird has a PB (Purple Breast). If your bird were SF Pastel, because it has a WB it would still be visually yellow, if it had a PB it would be a lighter green color. People also call a SF Pastel Blue AKA SF Yellow Blue a "pastel" which with a PB is visually blue bodied but with a WB it is visually white.

A very good site to learn more about the genetics is here:
http://www.gouldiansgalore.com/gouldian-genetics.html

Very pretty birds
Best of luck with them