Aspen

Thanks Trevor!

Thanks Trevor. Do you think a split OB would also have the lighter tail or does it have to be full OB to have that?

How dark are the tails on your LBs, Trevor? Are they black or a lighter grey? Thanks

I have also noticed that OB males take longer to get their solid breast feathers than the normal blacks. Any idea why? I have chicks from September that are only now almost coloured in. Still not totally there.

Thanks for the answer, Trevor. I thought that CFW would have chestnut cheeks and flanks unless they were full BC. This guy is grey flanked. Am I totally out to lunch on this? This clutch had fawn hens, a CFW hen and these two CFW males. I wouldn't think it is possible for him to be a fawn CFW from these two birds. Here's my thinking - The male looks NG but carries both fawn and CFW. For this male to be fawn CFW, then he would have had to get the fawn gene from his father as well as the CFW and if that were the case the father would be fawn. Is this correct thinking or not?

The brother in the top picture is definitely pied - something which both surprised and disappointed me. NOT what I wanted!! But I don't think the second one - the one in question - is. He has very pale grey flanking, not white like his brother, and his cheek patches streak back and are not cut off/missing like his brothers. I am attaching the best picture I have of his tail. Hope this helps someone help me!

I bred a what looked like CFW female to a black cheek male. No history on either bird. The chicks hatched in September. I got three fawn females, one pied, one CFW female and these two CFW males, one of which is also pied. My question is for the non-pied male. He has zebra striping on his breast, but no solid color there. He has light grey flanking with white dots. His beak appears to be red like the other male - who I know for sure sings. (They are in a cage with 9 males so it is hard to catch this one singing for sure.) The sister CFW to these two has no zebra stripings on her breast and she has the darker feathers on her head typical of a lot of poorly marked CFWs (like her mother). Neither of these two had the darker head markings as chicks. Questions - Is this a male for sure? If not, why the breast and flank markings? If so, why is there no solid chest marking? If this is a split to BC male, why are there no chestnut cheek patches and sides? Might this be a poor full BC CFW? (The hen has a very thick tear.) Does anyone have other ideas on what might be in this bird? Thanks

Following up here. Don't think they are continental as the tail has very pale stripes. I notice I didn't mention that the male was Black Cheek split to CFW and fawn, or at least he must be based on his chicks. The one male is pied so he only has the breast striping half way and no real cheek patches - so I'll put that to pied. But the other one has breast striping, still has the black smudging on the cheeks - no orange - and the sides are a faint grey with the white dots. His beak looks red like the other males he is with, not orange like a female's. He is in a large cage so is difficult to catch for pictures but I can try in a couple days if no one has any ideas for me as to what is going on here. I'm very confused...

Thanks for the answer, Nick!

Is your hen a LB as well? And what does the extra large tear on her mean? Thanks.

I have my first clutch with CFWs. They are over a week older than a clutch with fawns and normals. The normal and fawn males have their chestnut sides and cheek patching coming in well - very obvious. The CFWs I thought were females - no color coming at all yet. Then I noticed a couple of striped chest feathers and I caught one of them trying to sing. Question - to CFWs normally color up a lot more slowly than other mutations?

Dominant silver I presume? Has anyone made them with the recessive silver mutation?

Elementary question, but what are the mutations that make up a cream?

I have had people look at my pictures and say fawn but when I knew it was a grey in real life, so there is a similarity. But this girl (she has to be a girl if she is LB in this case) looks different than her brothers for sure, but is also grey.

Thanks for the info. Glad to hear from someone who has had them. I'm really thinking this is a lightback female chick. She is different than her brothers - lighter (silver looking) on top and quite white underneath - where she is clean. The nest is very messy and the chicks are the dirtiest I have seen yet, so it may be a while before I get pictures up.

Thanks! I haven't thought to check that one. Some people say lightbacks have horn colored beaks, but it sure looks black like a normal chick in those pictures. I wonder if it really is? I have one I am wondering about being lightback but it had a normal black beak. Sure is a different color than it's grey siblings though, and not fawn.

What color is the beak on a lightback chick?

Thanks for the responses! I have that same parents of this one starting to lay again so we'll see what they come up with this time. NG male and fawn female. They have had both fawn and NG males and females, so he carries fawn. The fawn hens were not white underneath (see picture), but the grey ones (including this one) were. This is another reason - besides the color I saw in real life - I don't believer this hen is fawn. If she were fawn and lightback, the other fawn hens would have to have been lightback (barring crossing over) and they weren't. The only other grey hen is also very light with a grey tail. (see picture) Not sure what she is - lightback and isabel combination is a possibility. So it appears my NG male actually carries two sex linked variations, so he can't have a true NG hen chick, but he looks NG because the gene that carries fawn doesn't carry lightback and the gene that carries lightback doesn't carry fawn. Now, to figure out what the silver hen is.

She's not fawn. In the third picture you can see her at the back compared to her fawn sister and her grey brother. The color in the pictures is confusing. Thanks for your responses, though. I learned from them.

Here's some more pictures. She was definitely grey as compared to her fawn sisters. She is definitely lighter backed compared to her grey brothers. I expect she was at least split OB if not full OB based on tail and lack of tear mark. She is also likely split BB. What about her tail says that she isn't lightback? My understanding is that they should have normal tail markings and a lighter back.

The lighting isn't the best and I no longer have this bird to take more pictures, but is this a lightback hen?

Thanks Scott!

What color is the beak on a grey isabel chick - horn colored like the fawn isabels or is it dark like a normal grey? Thanks

I have a couple hens for sale at the moment. Of course, I live in Canada... Here is a picture of one of my males and a couple of his female chicks when bred to a hen split to Isobel. Both of these are fawn and have a split to orange breasted as well. The male is full Black Breasted and the females are at least split BB. Not sure if they are split or full BB. Though they look the same, the genetics of Isobel and Florida Fancy are different. Both remove the black on a bird, so all you see is the brown/orange coloring. Isobels are fully recessive - carriers of the gene show nothing until they get both copies and then are full Isobel. Florida Fancy is a co-dominant gene. One copy of it half reduces the black, so you get a silver look. They call them Florida Silvers. Full Florida Fancies look the same as Isobels. Apparently if you cross Isobels and Florida Fancies, you get even white birds yet with the full orange. Here is a link that explains it better than I can: http://www.efinch.com/species/ffxisabelzeb.htm

I put up a bunch of pictures in this thread: http://zebrafinchforum.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic/5885-any-guesses-as-to-colors-on-these-youngsters/ I have found the breeder I got the parents from. She has Isabel and lightback in her lines. She even had penguin a long way back and maybe that as a recessive is still hanging around. She can't be straight lightback because of the grey tail.