This is a lovely hen by the way - & she looks really healthy. She's a yellow face- a Recessive pied as well & a Sky blue, I would say.

Wow... can you tell me how you knew all that from one picture? I picked up on the sex, but how do you know the reessive and stuff. I'd love to learn more about colorings and mutations and stuff.

Budgie mutations can make my head spin! But I can see the yellow face (even though the entire picture is yellowed from the lighting. The pied is due to the patches of blue I believe - Jac, how you know it's a recessive pied, is that due to the opaline at all? The belly coloring would make me also say she's a Sky Blue in color (they look more turquoise whereas the violet factor blues have more of a purple hint to them).

it must be my farm-girl & daughter of a fanatical researcher/genetics Dad past, that has me focused on the type!

Sarah - I don't think she's an Opaline - cause you can see dark bars on her head & a pied dot on the back of the head. She's Recessive rather than a Dominate Pied because she has 'little' markings on her wings & 'splashes' of body colour.

I double checked & she's not a type2 or double factor Yellow-face - as her blue is a clear 'sky' - not a 'seafoam' like Pogo, where the yellow changes the blue to a blue/green.

how I see it.

I do see the Pied dot on the back of her head - I thought that was a Pied trait but wasn't totally sure (I want to get better at figuring these things out). But doesn't the opaline mean that the barring on the head is reversed & the fact that the body coloring extends throughout the wings instead of the bars going down the back and wings - I see bars on her head too, but Jerry has those lighter bars with the black tips, and I've always thought he was an opaline. Whereas Winston has the obvious darker bars that indicate the "normal" or usual bars? Maybe I've been wrong about this for awhile

Jerry's bars vs. Winston's bars:

I think Jerry is an Opaline - I'm not sure about the dark aspect of the bars on his head - may be because his body colour is more violet than blue.

Rio being a dilute has blue bars on the back of his head.



Laker has the Dot - being a Pied as well but as he has no broken colours on his body & his wings are clear white on the flights only, so he's a Clearflight Pied. ~ This last molt however has given him a strong yellowish bib. I hope that goes away.

Yes I can see in that last picture that his yellow face is coming through moreso than in previous pics. I think it's cute!

Jerry's head bars are black - the head feathers are white with black tips. I don't think I've realized til now that Rio does have blue bars on his head

Thanks Sarah for moving this thread to the Budgie forum - glad you were on it!

I hope I didn't confuse everyone - I split the original thread in 2 and snipped out the off-topic parts of each "new" thread.