Dark Eyed White Self

I've been meaning to write about the White Self for a while now and have finally gotten around to it. My attached pictures are of Australian Bengalese and were supplied by my friend James in Queensland.

I will begin with the dark eyed White which can be described as a pied Bengalese with one big white patch that covers the whole body. These White Selfs have their natural non pied colour still present in their DNA and is simply concealed by the pied marking that covers it. This kind of White has dark eyes which helps you to think of it as a fully pied bird,  the colour of the eye will help to show what the natural colour of the bird is underneath. The White Bengalese has both dominant and recessive pied factors present and it is best practice to breed a white to a light pied (lightly variegated) for best results. It has been said that breeding a full white to another full white can increase the likeliness of blindness in the future. When showing these finches, other than size and type that are a standard consideration, the White Self birds can sometimes have poor feather coverage at the bend of the wing and at the ear. One or both points are noticeable on the pictures in this post. This feature also gets worse as fully white birds are mated together, so to overcome this feature then they should be paired with lightly variegated birds that have good feather coverage in these areas.
The Dark Eyed White Self Bengalese is probably the most known Self in Australia and through my inquiries unfortunately tends to have more value to some bird dealers that I have spoken with when compared to a Self Coloured Bengalese such as the Chocolate or Chestnut. In truth, it is probably just as hard if not harder to produce a Coloured Self Bengalese than the Dark Eyed White due to the dominant nature of the white or pied factor, and in coloured birds this white factor is very difficult to remove.

Other Australian Bengalese that can be called White Selfs are the Albino and also the Cremino, both have red eyes.

Cheers.