The creamino shafttail finch is a bird with the ino gene, which renders it a soft cream color. Ino is defined as a strong qualitative reduction of eumelanin and phaeomelanin. In this mutation, phaeomelanin has almost disappeared and there is hardly any oxidation of the eumelanin. Black feathers will turn a very pale brown, almost white. The inheritance of creamino mutation is recessively sex-linked, see also the fawn mutation. This means that only males can be the carriers of the trait and females are either normal or visual creamino mutant. Creamino males can only be born from a creamino mother and a normal father that has this hidden mutation, and of course from parents that are both the creaminos. For this reason, males showing these two mutations, Creamino and Fawn, are rarer than females and therefore command a higher price.

This is our first creamino shafttail. We were lucky enough to have bought a normal pair of shafttails with a hidden mutation. The mutation showed during the first hatch when we had one normal male and this creamino female.