Head colours

[gomer]

Can anyone give me advice on breeding black headed gouldians only.I seem to get nearly all red or yellow headed birds,With the rare black head.I want to purchase some new stock in black head and want to know what coloured beak a true black head has.As far as i understand a black headed hen is always black or split to yellow,And will have a yellow tipped beak if its split to yellow?And a black headed cock can be split to red or yellow.So i would assume it would have a yellow tip beak for yellow and a red for red head?Is this correct.Can someone point me in the right direction.

[Meagan83]

I have not heard of a black head being split for yellow(head) and having a yellow tipped beak.
I have a few that are black headed and they all have red tipped beaks.

[debbie276]

http://www.finchinfo.com/genetics/lady_ ... colors.php

Red head (RH) is a sex-linked dominant trait, so cocks can be double factor (DF) or single factor (SF) red heads and express it while hens can only ever be single factor (SF) and express it. No cock or hen can ever be split for red head.

Black head (BH) is a sex-linked recessive trait, so cocks can be double factor (DF) (and express a black head) or single factor (SF) (and be "split" for black head) while hens can only ever be single factor (SF) and express it. No hen can ever be split for black head.

Yellow head (YH) is an autosomal recessive trait, but also requires at least one red head gene to be present in order to be expressed. If two yellow head genes are present on a bird that has no red head genes (and instead has black head genes), the bird will have a black head with a yellow tipped beak (YTB). This occurs because the bird is genetically a yellow headed bird, but it cannot express the yellow color because the yellow gene depends on the red head gene for expression, and the red head gene is not there. Both cocks and hens can be "split" for yellow head.

[Meagan83]

Gould genetics are so complicated. I'll never figure it all out.
Thanks for enlightening us Debb.

[nixity]

BH hens are not "always" split to yellow.
But you also won't know if they are or not unless you know their parentage or test breed them.

Though even if they ARE split for yellow, if you're only pairing her to a BH cock, you'll only get BH babies.

If you want to eliminate the number of RH and YH you get - don't pair your BHs to RH or YH

[gomer]

I keep nearly all my head colours separate.Maybe overtime i have lost or sold of the blacks,Due to bad breeding results.And been concentrating on yellows.As you can only keep so many birds.