Florida fancy female

[Ameza]

Hi guys.

Just some speculations here since I have never actually seen a florida fancy. Does anywone have a picture of a female ff? Because I have only noticed pictures of the male ff. Are the females just white?

This mutation is so pretty...

[dpedersen]

I have a FF hen, but she's orange breasted too. She's white with a bit of orange around her vent extending upwards and a bit of orange on her cheeks. My friend has a Florida fancy hen that is white, but she has some really light grey lacing on her wings so she might just be a florida silver...

Anyway, I hope someone here can help. I'm curious to see them too

[Nagdabit]

I apologize for the delay in responding. While we recently got a Florida Fancy hen, we hadn't gotten around to getting any pics of her yet. When I tried to get some last night, the lighting was poor causing her to look gray and washed out. Wanted to get you a pic that better demonstrates her beautiful bright white coloring, so I tried again this afternoon. Pics came out a little better, but she wasn't a very cooperative subject. For the sake of comparison I'll start with a couple from last night. Also thought they'd be helpful since for whatever reason, the darker pics also make her subtle orange color more prominent.

First one has her siting beside our CFW / BC hen



Here she's hanging out with our Phaeo / Florida Silver OB/BB hen. Included this one since it shows her markings from the side



Now from today, in this pic you can barely make out where the light orangish coloring starts on her belly. It continues all the way back to her vent. The same colors make up the stripes in her tail bars.



Also from today showing more of a side view. Here you can make out her very slight cheek patches and the lacing in her wings. The hen with her also has a Phaeo OB/BB background.



We got this hen about three months ago at of all places, Petsmart (Gasp!) I know, I know, we vowed we'd never get a bird from there, but we have a couple of FF boys who have been not so patiently waiting for some honeys, and she was there every time we went in for over a month, so I finally wore down. Especially after the girl told us we had two weeks to see if she "played nice with others" We already had some hens in quarantine so we popped her in with them and watched. Turned out she's a little on the aggressive side but the other hens will put her in her place if she tries to go too far.

Again I apologize since the pictures really don't do her justice. Like dpedersen's hen, she might be mixed with OB as well cause there was a Normal Gray looking male at the store when we bought her that had some orange lacing in his wings. Thinking it's a good possibility that they were related.

[Ameza]

Thank you so much for those great pictures!

She is a beauty and the other birds

And I can see the lacing in her wings very well and the orangeish belly. It's good to know how they look like since it would be a shame to pass a bird like this because of ignorence. I have yet to find floridan fancies here in iceland but I have my hopeful wishing. And at least now I will have a better eye out for the females ;) Thank you again!

[Nagdabit]

Glad to help out. Yea, she's a cutie. The one I'm anxious to see finish coloring up is our little Phaeo hen, CJ. (have pics of her posted in here...) http://www.finchforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=10404

If she's ends up looking anything like her Aunt Calypso she's going to be beautiful!

Keep in mind on the pics of our FF hen, since she might be split to OB, her orange markings are more prominent. I have seen some FF hens where the lacing isn't as noticeable, and sometimes even non-existent. Same with the faint cheek patches. The main give away with FF hens, along with the bright white feathers, is the light orange coloring around the vent. And just as important, the lack of any black markings whatsoever.

Shame you're so far away. We actually have a FF male availabe right now along with a couple of Single factor hens. Be more than happy to hook you up.

[Ameza]

*sigh* Yes it really is a shame. Importing birds is not an easy prossess.

I think FF are so beautiful and even the single factors are very pretty! I am holding my hopes up on one breeder that I haven't visited yet. From what I heard from a buyer he seems to have penguins or possible fancies so I keep my fingers crossed.

[Nagdabit]

Hope you can find some at the other breeders. They're not exactly the same, but the European Isabel is similar to FF. Are there any of that mutation over there?

[Ameza]

I have to admit that I haven't done enough reading to quite understand the factors between the fancies and isabel. Vargur, the other iceland breeder here seems to have two birds that carry the isabel trait, or so it was at least indentified. She has a silver female that seems to have this gene and passed it on the second generation, but no more that I know of.

There do not seem to be many "experts" here, many petshops know nothing of the mutations of zebbies and we breeders are small, scattered and hidden. So finding the mutations you want is very hard indeed. Even mutations that are common in most places like black cheek, penguin and orange breasted are hard to find! I am building a bigger cage so I can add birds, but there will be some serious bird hunting before I buy them

[Nagdabit]

Sorry for your dilemma. Really wish there was a way we could help you out. In reality though some of those mutations aren't easy for us to come across over here as well. After a number of years of trying, we've yet to get a Black Cheek ourselves. We do have two girls that are split to BC and another we think could be. Hoping soon to put one of the split girls together with a male offspring from our possible split girl to see what we get.

We had purchased a BC hen, a Light Back hen split to BC, along with a little Crested girl at a bird show over a year ago, but both the BC hen and the Crested died shortly after coming out of quarantine. The whole ordeal threw out breeding plans out of whack for quite a while. Just finally were able able to start putting some couples together a few months ago. Hoping somehow we can find a way to get some Black Cheeks out of all this mess.

[Ameza]

Oh sorry about losing these birds. Terrible how that can happen.

Yeah I'm a big sucker for BC as well, Vargur is going to lend me one of her split females and I am going to mate it with my possible split male and hopefully we will get some bc chicks in the next few months

And a lightback black cheek, that is one beautiful combo. Too bad I don't have the room to try out for that, would take more than one generation.

[Nagdabit]

Even though she only has slightly enlarged tear drop markings, our Lightback hen split to BC is a very stunning little girl. Unfortunately we really don't have the right male to give her to fully bring out that color combination. We do have a single factor FF in need of a mate but that mutation cancels out all the black markings. Might put them together any way just for one clutch to see what we get. Especially since the SF / FF male does have some other splits working in his background.