GOULDIAN WITH A FUSION BAR!

Misso · Post by **Misso** » Tue May 05, 2009 8:04 am

Hello Everyone,

Attached is a picture of my RH/WB/GB Cock, which i purchesed from a sale in March, whist cleaning his cage the other day i noticed he had a Red Line inbetween his White Chest and Yellow Belly, i had seen this red line on the internet before in gouldians so i went straight to my Gouldian Book: A guilde to Gouldian Finches and their Mutations and they had a little info on the topic, it read

"Some Specimens have a red line of canthaxanthin pigment adjoining the bottom of the purple breast area. This is known as the Fusion Bar and is veiwed as desirable by many experinced breeders. Some of the earlist paintings of wild gouldian finches show the presence of a fusion bar".

Im writing to the forum in hope of some more detailed information, does anyone on here have gouldians with this trait? do they know how the trait is passed on?

any help would be great

Jarryd

sorry about the picture quality, took it with a mobile phone.

L in Ontario · Post by **L in Ontario** » Tue May 05, 2009 8:07 am

I don't know anything about it except it sure is pretty to me too! A few of my babies have it too.

Misso · Post by **Misso** » Tue May 05, 2009 8:13 am

L in Ontario wrote:I don't know anything about it except it sure is pretty to me too! A few of my babies have it too.

Hi L in Ontario, so your saying you have some goulds with the red line? and babies? by babies do you mean Juviniles? if so does the red line show through their juvinile feathering???

Jarryd

L in Ontario · Post by **L in Ontario** » Tue May 05, 2009 8:15 am

Hi Jarryd,

My babies/juvies are colouring up and I see it between their breast and belly colours - definitely not through their baby feathers.

Sorry, they are all babies to me until they are sold off (after colouring up).

Misso · Post by **Misso** » Tue May 05, 2009 8:17 am

Could you please tell me there parents coloring? do the parents show the red line???

Jarryd

Misso · Post by **Misso** » Tue May 05, 2009 8:18 am

Hi Liz, could you please tell me their parents colors? do the parents have the red line?

Jarryd

L in Ontario · Post by **L in Ontario** » Tue May 05, 2009 8:25 am

I'll have to check which babies they are when I get home tonight - I have around 50 babies, so I can't recall which ones have the line. I'll check their legbands tonight and refer back to my database of their parents to see their colouring.

I'll get back to you.

Misso · Post by **Misso** » Tue May 05, 2009 8:27 am

thanks so much liz

Jarryd

CandoAviary · Post by **CandoAviary** » Tue May 05, 2009 1:45 pm

How fascinating. I have red about this but have never seen one. Thanks for the picture. I will be interested in the genetics behind this......

One question, you said that in the early paintings of the wild gouldians that there was this fusion bar.... I thought wild gouldians were purple chested..... were there white chested wild?

L in Ontario · Post by **L in Ontario** » Tue May 05, 2009 1:46 pm

I believe the fusion bar is visible on some purple breasted Gouldians as well. I was surprised to see it on my white breasted Gould juvies.

the.puppeteer · Post by **the.puppeteer** » Tue May 05, 2009 2:46 pm

Hi Misso,

Here's a site with lots of pictures (including art from 1855) and some info about the fusion bar and it's inheritance.

This site is awesome for anyone looking for pictures of Gouldians, both normal and mutations.

http://users.skynet.be/fa398872/engoulm09.htm

Enjoy!
-Julie

nixity · Post by **nixity** » Tue May 05, 2009 5:25 pm

Most people refer to this as "red-line," "RL," I think simply because it's more descriptive

Either way, The genetics are autosomal recessive, so it's possible to pair two non-RL birds together and get RL offspring.

The important thing is determining whether or not the bird is actually "RL".

The easiest way to do this to catch the bird and push back the feathers in this area so they flip down like a flip-motion-book (or, you can wait for a feather in this area to fall out or [eek!] pluck one).

With a true RL, you will be able to distinctly see the red line going across each individual feather in this area.

Some are more noticeable than others - this particular bird has a very faint line showing.
It would be interesting to see if when you check, it truly is RL.
Then - you may be able to produce more if you happen to have a bird that carries a recessive copy

L in Ontario · Post by **L in Ontario** » Tue May 05, 2009 7:03 pm

Okay I think you birds RL shows up much better than mine. Bird #2 and 3 in this photo have a slight RL (#2 more than #3 I think).

The parents for those two are:

C= RH/B WB SFYB
H= HB/O WB GB

And I checked - it seems to only be on some of my male juvies - no females.

Misso · Post by **Misso** » Wed May 06, 2009 1:53 am

CandoAviary wrote:How fascinating. I have red about this but have never seen one. Thanks for the picture. I will be interested in the genetics behind this......

One question, you said that in the early paintings of the wild gouldians that there was this fusion bar.... I thought wild gouldians were purple chested..... were there white chested wild?

Hi, you are right, wild gouldians are only purple chested, there was no white chested in the wild.

Jarryd

Misso · Post by **Misso** » Wed May 06, 2009 1:56 am

the.puppeteer wrote:Hi Misso,

Here's a site with lots of pictures (including art from 1855) and some info about the fusion bar and it's inheritance.

This site is awesome for anyone looking for pictures of Gouldians, both normal and mutations.

http://users.skynet.be/fa398872/engoulm09.htm

Enjoy!
-Julie

thanks for the link julie, i had come across that page, but was still after some more detailed info.

happy birding

Jarryd