FINCHforum

So I bought a pair of society finches from Dennis, a chocolate self hen, and a chocolate pied male. (I witnessed singing) Well, I love crested, fawns, and pieds. My uncle called me and told me he got me a chocolate male, and a pied fawn, crested hen! if I breed the two what are my chances of crested and/or fawn babies? I just need the offspring outcome. Thanks! Also, would it be okay if I kept the two pairs together or house them seperatly?

wow this is so funny that you asked that because i was just about to ask about crested genetics lol, when i had my societies i had a chocolate pied crested hen and a non crested chocolate pied male and out of 3 clutches {first had 3 chicks, second had 2 chicks and third had 3 chicks} none of the babies were crested.
i read that its dominant or co-dominant but from my results i don't see that.

Chocolate is dominant over fawn. Crests are easily passed on.

Thanks! I'm hoping for fawns, hoping for crested even more. Hoping for the combination more then more!

I believe that you have a 50/50 chance of getting crested and as far as fawn you will get visual fawn females and chocolate split to fawn males... Hoping someone else can confirm that...

Fawn is recessive to both chestnut and chocolate, so the only way you would produce more fawns is if one of your chocolate males is split to fawn (or if you pair the fawn hen to a fawn male obviously).

Pied is ALWAYS passed on - so if you breed a pied to a self you will produce predominantly ALL pied birds with a possible few exceptions (and even those generally have some degree of white on them - like a small spot under the chin in an example of mine).
The self was produced by breeding the white out of pieds, so in order to keep the pied out, you have to breed selfs to selfs if that's what you want - just for those curious.

Whatever you do - do not breed two crested birds together.
If you pair a crested to a non you will get a percentage of crested babies.

Thanks everybody!! Hopefully he is split to pied. Why can't you breed a crested to crested?

You mean split to fawn?

Crested x crested is a lethal combination.

Yes, I mean fawn. Lol, and the chicks would died. ): not trying that..

Dante, you only need to have one crested within the pair to get some offspring to be crested. I have crested zebras, one born to a crested father and the other a black cheek born to two non crested parents (housed on their own)...the pair is my oldest BC and they had 4 clutches all normal BC non crested until this one female showed up in the 5th clutch. She is now about 6 months and a mom.

cindy wrote:Dante, you only need to have one crested within the pair to get some offspring to be crested. I have crested zebras, one born to a crested father and the other a black cheek born to two non crested parents (housed on their own)...the pair is my oldest BC and they had 4 clutches all normal BC non crested until this one female showed up in the 5th clutch. She is now about 6 months and a mom.

its funny how the crested genetics works. i mean it can be there and not show for many generations. that leads me to believe its less then 50/50 its more like 30/70 crested/non-crested.

That's interesting. Has she produced crested babies also? And the societies are on eggs now. I'll see them today

I bred my crested x non-crested pair recently. I was unlucky in two ways: there was only one fertile egg, and it wasn't crested.

Raleighwheels wrote:I bred my crested x non-crested pair recently. I was unlucky in two ways: there was only one fertile egg, and it wasn't crested.

thats the luck of the draw my friend, sometimes it sucks but sometime we end up with way more then we expected

Dante, Garrie Landry has written up some interesting facts in regards to mutations...

http://www.efinch.com/species/cfwzeb.htm
http://www.zebrafinch.com/SocietyFinch/Society.html