Hi all,

 

I am interested to find out what one colour one of my budgies is. I am particularly interested in finding out what has caused the black sploches on the back of his head (for lack of a better way to describe them!).

 

I think that he is a double factor golden face opaline dominent pied violet (or cobalt?), but I am confused as to what is causing the white cheek patches.

 

Here are a few pictures:

 

 

Never seen this before. He is beautiful. Would love to see more pictures.

Edited December 15, 201311 yr by Phoebes

That bird is amazing, I wish I had ones like him. However similarly to other budgies they get lines across the top of head and eventually gets lower as they age, and so on. However your budgie just has spots instead of lines, which I think is an amazing gene. and about the white patches, his parents may have had albino / lutino, as my lutinos have white cheek patches, as they have albino in them.

Edited December 15, 201311 yr by Budgie_Mad

Speckling is pretty common. most show breeders attempt to eliminate this feature as doesn't meet the standard, personally I like it in pets. Not sure what causes the white cheek patches but I do have a YF grey cin spangle hen with this feature.

That is a great looking bird Nickyk.

Paulie

Hi all, thanks for the kind replies.

 

 

What would you suggest that I breed him to to get babies with similar spots on their heads? Unfortunately I never kept records of who his parents were. I used to breed a few babies for fun, but now that I have just bought 4 show budgies, I have realized how interesting colour and genetics are.

I would breed him to another opaline. Good luck.

White cheek patches are produced in any budgie that has a melanin removing mutation, if the melanin happens to be removed from part or all of the cheek patch feathers. This bird is a pied, so his cheek patches happen to be "pied out".

 

Examples of melanin removing mutations would be spangle, all the pieds, and ino.

Thanks Finnie - much appreciated!