GENETICS: AM I OVERTHINKING????

[Misso]

i was sitting outside today watching this yrs born gouldians as they color up, trying to get a ruff idea on which birds to keep and which to sell.

plus possible pairs for next yrs breeding season.

anyway, i have a YH/PB/SFY HEN that i bred last yr and i would like to try and bred her to produce some DFY Cocks, so i wrote down that i needed to buy a YH/PB/ SFY COCK, i then thought what if i cant find a Yellow head cock, what color SFY would i then like to breed with her. black or red???

i then realized if i had a different colored head cock bird then my hen would realize and produce more cocks, due to the recent discovery that hens have a role in determining the sex of the clutch if the head color of the cock bird is different to her own, hence increasing my chances of males which could mean more DFY COCKS.

i think that makes sense in theory, what do others think???

Jarryd

[CandoAviary]

That study of the hens controling the sex of the offspring was done with red head gouldians paired with like head or black head.
There is a gouldian calculator that you can punch in what you are breeding and it will show you what you will get.
Also on Tiffany/aka nixity site you can read the reverse genetics which will tell you what you need to breed together to get the offspring that you are seeking. If it is not on her site you can PM her and she will help you figure it out. Good luck.

[Domenic]

Tiffany's site is http://www.gouldiansgalore.net/ if you would like to read about gouldian genetics.

[nixity]

You could certainly try it to increase your odds, but just know that typically speaking orange (aka "yellow" - but I use "Orange" or "OH" so as not to confuse with "Yellow" body) birds are categorically "less dominant" in the wild, and there are very few wild OH birds (they say the rough number is 1 in every 1,000 are OH).

This is why they were not included in the study.
The concept goes, however, that RH prefers to breed with RH, but will pair with BH if necessary, and neither RH nor BH like to pair to OH.

(Note this is extended to males, too, because they ALSO have preferences on who they will court to apparently).

Just know that you could also get Dilute males pairing a Yellow hen to a SF Yellow cock.