finch master wrote:i bred this gouldian a few years ago (bad white breast) does anyone know why this happens
paul
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I believe that this a melanistic modification.
Typically, most of the melanistic goulds (blue breast, melanistics, etc) are the result of some sort of dietary, hormonal, or environmental (e.g., lighting) deficiency, that when corrected, corrects itself (i.e., the bird molts out to white breast in the successive year).
It could also just be a genetic blurp like a hypo/hyper morph where the pigmentation is just not expressing properly.