Violet Factor in the Turquoise Parakeet
The Violet Factor is an incomplete dominant structural mutation that shifts the blue component of the plumage toward violet. Like Dark Factor, it is always visible — there is no hidden split state — and it is autosomal, so cocks and hens inherit it identically. It is most often seen combined with the Dark Factor series, giving Violet, Violet Dark Green and Violet Olive birds.
What is the Violet Factor?
The Violet Factor is a structural colour modifier — it changes how the feather scatters light rather than adding or removing pigment. Campagne records it as established in the Turquoise Parakeet, developed in France, and already available in both single and double factor across the whole Dark Factor range — Green, Dark Green and Olive. It follows the same one-copy/two-copy additive pattern as Dark Factor, which makes it one of the more predictable mutations to breed with once you know a bird's factor count.
How it works, in plain terms
A Turquoise Parakeet's green and blue areas are built structurally: a light-scattering layer in the feather produces blue, which is overlaid with yellow psittacofulvin pigment to read as green. The Violet Factor alters the spacing of that scattering layer, pushing the blue it produces toward the violet end of the spectrum. In green-series birds the effect is subtle — a deeper, cooler cast to the body colour — and it is far more obvious in the blue and turquoise areas, which is where breeders usually judge it.
Autosomal inheritance, explained
The Violet Factor sits on an ordinary autosome, not the Z sex chromosome, so cocks and hens inherit and express it identically. Each parent passes one of their two copies at random to each offspring, giving the standard incomplete-dominant ratios.
Genotype → phenotype
| Genotype | Appearance | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| V⁺ / V⁺ | Normal (no violet) | Cocks & hens |
| V⁺ / V | Violet (single factor) | Cocks & hens |
| V / V | DF Violet (double factor) | Cocks & hens |
Because the Violet Factor is autosomal, this single table covers both sexes — no separate cock and hen tables are needed the way they are for Cinnamon, Opaline or Ino.
Sources & honesty note
The presence of the Violet Factor in Neophema Pulchella, its single- and double-factor forms, and its combination with the Dark Factor series come from Dr Alain Campagne, A Guide to Neophema and Neopsephotus Genera and Their Mutations (ABK Publications, 2008), pp. 65 and 109. The plain-language explanation of structural colour above draws on well-established cross-species psittacine genetics — the equivalent Violet Factor is extensively documented in budgerigars — and has not been verified line-by-line against Neophema-pulchella-specific photographs, so treat the colour descriptions as a general guide. See the full references page for this project's other sources.