Cock Black Head

Habitat of Gouldians

During October when the young birds moult (come into colour) the young birds are under considerable stress and extra vitamins should be supplied then. By Christmas the young are fully coloured and are ready to be set up for the following year/s breeding.

BLACKHEADED -     Make sure they are blackheaded. COCK    deep purple chest
with a deep yellow abdomen and deep green back.     HEN a lighter shade of cock.

RED HEADED    Dominant to blackhead. COCK     Head colour of a medium red
with a black edging to a thickness of 1 - 2 mm maximum. Chest violet not blue with a deep yellow abdomen and green back not of a blue shade. HEN  A full red head of medium shade with the rest of the body a dilute version of the cock.

YELLOW HEADED     Autosomal Recessive. COCK     Deep purple chest, rich yellow abdomen.  I like to avoid pale washed out yellows  I do not consider these darker colours have anything to do with sooty red in yellow hens.  I believe the sooty head in yellow hens is caused by a genetic factor which increases the size of the black face edging to such an extent that it nearly covers all of the face.  I say it is genetic as it is possible to eliminate the edging altogether.  This sooty factor was a problem in the early stages
of establishing the yellow headed variety as the sooty hens were far more reliable breeders than were the clear yellows which often refused to breed st all.

The result of breeding clear cocks to sooty hens was that a strain of clear cocks and sooty hens was produced, which made it even more difficult to breed the much sought after clear yellow birds.  Red headed birds cannot be produced from blackheaded birds even blackheaded birds from red split to black parents.All blackheaded birds are pure and cannot be split to red as black is recessive to red.  The red mutation must have
appeared at some stage in the past and no doubt  yellow from red.  If red was in the species from conception the black would have been wiped out by now by the dominant red variety.

This is something I hope gouldian breeders never lose sight of.  I have mated black to red/black many times and have never had the black offspring when bred to other blacks produced anything other than blackl and nor would I expect them to.    The reds produced from a black/red/black mating or a double factor red and black mating are only
slightly deeper in colour and I often used this mating to put  more depth into pale reds. I established my black strain by using my superior red strain in breeding to my blacks.  These original birds were wild trapped stock from WA      The red hen was a beautiful clear headed bird, whilst the cock was a good bird with a medium red head and black mask edging to about 3mm.   in width.. I reduced this edging to about 1 mm over the next ten years.

I  do not believe in mating these very dark almost black headed birds to either reds or blacks, especially blacks, as you can see the black factor in reds,  but not in blacks. and they can then be inferior to your red strain genetically.  I do not believe there is any point in breeding from these sooty headed birds, even though their body colours are nearly always more intense than all other head colours.  These birds are often used
to mate to yellow heads to produce a blackhead with a yellow tipped beak.. I Have produced a strain of these birds some time ago.. These birds have distinct feathering on their heads, similar to that found in the mask of the normal bird.   I think it is simply an extension of this sooty feature which covers the whole of the head.    These yellow tipped black headed birds when mated to clear headed yellow cocks that have been mated to clears for some generations, seem to produce yellow cocks with clear heads and hens with yellow and black heads.  I think these birds should be kept to themselves,
and not be used to mate to the normal clear headed varieties.

QUALITY IN GOULDIANS      Quality in black headed gouldians is very hard to maintain.  You will see more good birds in the red variety and that is a pity, as a good black is hard to beat, and a shame if they were to become extinct, as they will always be the best source of the most vivid colour and as such the real basis of the gouldian finch.

FAULTS OFTEN SEEN IN BLACKHEADS - (1) Snake head when viewed from the front (2) Flat head when viewed from the side   (3) the tendency to lose size.

ADVANTAGES   -  It is not hard to maintain body colour.    They beat all other head colours hands down for intensity of body colour.

FAULTS IN ALL GOULDIANS        Faults in the beak such as (parrot billed) and (knitting needle) billed.  I believe that the bill should be short with a good width at the base with  a perfectly straight bitrew.  That is the edge between the top and bottom mandible. Other faults include Nipped necks, dropped tails, tails carried too high, loose feather .  Breeds not understanding the principle of yellow and buff.