About White Canaries

White Canaries are a type of Color Canary. They are considered Lipochrome or clear, meaning their feathers are devoid of dark pigment patterns seen in Melanin Canaries. White Canaries with a “recessive albino gene” will have pink eyes, legs and skin. White Canaries are divided into two main groups: Dominant White or Recessive White.

The bird shown below is one of my Recessive White Hens as a juvenile. Note the small gray “tick mark” behind her eye. Tick marks are any color that is not yellow or orange and are less than the size of a dime. These often fade out with the first or second molt and are replaced by feathers matching the color of the rest of the lipochrome bird.

Dominant White vs Recessive White Canaries

A dominant white Canary will have a faint tinge of yellow on a few wing feather edges or the shoulders. Below is a great example of a Dominant White Canary.

Recessive White Canaries, on the other hand, are pure white without any yellowish tinge.

Breeding Considerations

You’ll want to choose only healthy, vibrant and properly conditioned specimens. Individuals should also complement one another so that positive traits are reinforced to the breed standards, and the small faults of one partner can be compensated for with the strengths of the other.

When pairing any two Canaries, it’s always best to try and pair a hard feather individual (or Intensive) to a soft feather individual (or Non-intensive). See my blog post describing Feather Types to learn more.

Intensive and Non-intensive terms relate to the feather type and not the color genetics of a bird. Non-intensive does not mean the bird is a “Recessive White”, just as Intensive does not mean the bird is a “Dominant White”.

Pairing White Canaries

Pairing two Dominant White Canaries together is not recommended and can result in about one out of four chicks dying in the shell or soon after hatch. Only one gene of the Dominant white phenotype needs to be passed on to produce white offspring. Since Canaries cannot simply be “carriers” of the Dominant White Gene, this is where the term Dominant White comes from.

Pairing a Dominant White to a Recessive White usually results in 50% yellow offspring and 50% white offspring. Offspring would then be carriers of the Recessive White Gene.

Pairing two Recessive White Canaries together should produce all white offspring. With Recessive Whites, two white genes are needed to produce a white bird.