FINCHforum

Trinosaur

Good to know they're doing well!

Judging from your profile picture, your male is chocolate double-factor pied. Chocolate is the most dominant of the base colors (those being chocolate, chestnut, and fawn), so 50% or 100% of his offspring will be chocolate. If he has a chocolate allele and a chestnut or fawn allele, than only 50% of his offspring will be chocolate, since his parents are not chocolate. If he has two chocolate alleles, then all of his offspring will be chocolate.
Pied means that the bird has white patches. It is codominant, which means that a bird that has a pied allele will have white patches, but a bird with two pied alleles will have more patches than a bird with one pied allele. Your male has entirely white wings, which makes me think that he is double-factor pied (has two pied alleles). This means that all of his offspring will have at least some white on them.

I can't tell exactly what the female behind him is, but she is at least single-factor pied. She also appears to have a darker area on her upper beak, which indicates that she is chestnut, rather than fawn.
Chestnut is dominant over fawn and recessive to chocolate. This means that her offspring will be chocolate, rather than chestnut, if the father has two chocolate alleles. The offspring have a 25% to 50% chance of being chestnut if the father only has one chocolate allele. 50% of her offspring will be chestnut if the father has one chocolate allele and one chestnut allele (chocolate split to chestnut). 50% will also be chestnut if she has two chestnut alleles and the father has one chocolate and one fawn allele (chocolate split to fawn). 25% of her offspring will be chestnut if she has a fawn allele (chestnut split to fawn) and the father also has a fawn allele (chocolate split to fawn); the other 25% would be fawn.

Do you have more photos of the females? I could give you better predictions of what the babies will look like if I have more photos of the mothers.

The baby in the front looks like a chocolate pied, and should look something like its father. I can't tell what other two babies are, aside from saying that they are pied, and probably double-factor.

Hopefully I didn't use too much jargon... Ask me and I'll clarify some stuff if it isn't making sense.


EDIT
Female could be fawn; some have slightly darker beaks. If this is the case, either 0% or 50% of her offspring will be fawn.

Oh! That picture is of previous finches I owned who have since passed on. I do have a video of the three current parents taking a bath though!

https://youtu.be/Zy3KApPR4CY

The two lighter colored birds are the females. The dark one is my male! Thanks so much for your technical jargon though. I actually love learning about genetics. It’s a fascinating subject haha

Trinosaur

Whoops, guess not all of that was applicable, then.

Your male appears to be chocolate, one of the females chestnut, and the other female dilute chestnut or maybe fawn. They are all just on the line where I can't tell whether they are single- or double-factor pied.

It's kind of late here, so I'll have to get into the details another day. (Actually maybe later today because it's after midnight for me.)

Trinosaur

Are you familiar with Punnett squares? They're pretty useful for determining genetics. Here is the format:

Here would be the breeding results when it comes to color:
Key
C=Chocolate allele
c= chestnut allele
f= fawn allele
CC= pure chocolate
Cc= chocolate split to chestnut
Cf= chocolate split to fawn
cc= pure chestnut
cf= chestnut split to fawn
ff= fawn

Father pure chocolate, mother pure chestnut: 100% offspring are chocolate



Father chocolate split to fawn, mother pure chestnut: 50% offpring chocolate, 50% chestnut



Father chocolate split to fawn, mother chestnut split to fawn: 50% offspring chocolate, 25% chestnut, 25% fawn



Father chocolate split to chestnut, mother chestnut split to fawn: 50% offspring chocolate, 50% chestnut

Trinosaur

Here are the ones for pied; all of your birds are pied, so I'm not addressing self parents:

P= pied allele
p= non-pied allele
PP= double-factor pied
Pp= single-factor pied
pp= self (not pied)

Both parents single-factor pied: 25% offspring double-factor pied, 50% single-factor pied, 25% self



Both parents double-factor pied: 100% offspring double-factor pied



One parent double-factor pied, one single-factor: 50% offspring double-factor pied, 50% single-factor pied

Trinosaur

I do think your one female is dilute chestnut, as she has a darker beak, but light feathers that could almost be fawn. Dilute is recessive, and works like this:
N= non-dilute allele
n= dilute allele
NN= pure normal
Nn= normal split for dilute
nn= dilute

Pure normal father, dilute mother: 100% offspring normal



Both parents pure normal: 100% offspring normal


Father normal split to dilute, mother pure normal (or vice versa): 100% offspring normal



Father normal split to dilute, mother dilute: 50% offspring normal, 50% dilute



Both parents normal split to dilute: 75% offspring normal, 25% dilute

Fascinating! So far, just based on the pin feathers sprouting up, it seems one of the babies is a chestnut pied. Another one looks like it may be chocolate pied. Not sure about the third since there aren't enough feathers to go off. Here's a picture from this morning:

Trinosaur pink beaks look like they double factor pieds

Trinosaur

I'm not the best at identifying nestlings, so I couldn't tell you the color, but like Fraza said, the beak is a good indicator that the bird is double-factor pied.

Very neat. The darker baby has a dark beak to match so that one is probably single factor? Thanks for all the help guys!

Trinosaur ur welcome and ice storm the proper knowledge I just know a few little things haha

Ok one other question. How big should they be before I try to hold them and feed them myself? I really want to try hand feeding and taming them so that they will be comfortable around human hands. Just not sure how to go about it. I have hand feed formula and syringes of various sizes to try.

Trinosaur when they’re eyes have opened and when they have started to get there feathers a little I usually did around 2 weeks old but I used bits of baby food and only did odd times however only ever got one society that was okay with people . Sadly he later died

Society finches are generally great parents, will raise chicks and hatch eggs that are not theirs. They will be great parents as long as you don't disturb the nest too much.

Trinosaur

If their parents aren't comfortable around people, it is unlikely that they will remain tame even if you hand-feed them, since they will learn to be afraid of you from their parents. Once they have opened their eyes and know what their parents look like, they might not open their mouths for you to feed them.

If you ever do hand-feed birds, I highly recommend having someone show you how to do that in person, as incorrect feeding may result in asphyxiation and death.