FINCHforum

I have been on holiday to visit my mother in another country and blackmailed her into buying a pair of zebra finches. She did not want any more pets to tie her down since the death of my 19 year old dog 3 years ago but she love my zebras. We went to a mall close to where she lives and discovered a pet shop with all sorts of birds. I felt sorry for them as thezebra cage was overcrowded and they hardly had any food. I saw this particular hen which was bald on the back of her head bt was happily preening all the males around her and also saw this little boy with a twisted back toe, twisted towards the front ones. I thought they might never get bought and might end up badly so I got them for my mother.




As soon as I got them home they started eating like there was no tomorrow: boiled egg, seeds, lettuce, apple, which I am glad for because my own zebras don't like all that except for the lettuce. Then they slept for the rest of the day, I guess poor babies have been exhausted in that awful place.
Now I wonder what mutation they are, their tail feathers are in pretty bad condition at the moment but I noticed there are no stripes and theboy has no teardrop. Can anybody help me identify them?

Cock bird probably black breasted , unsure of hen's marking's .
Check out http://www.efinch.com or http://www.zebrafinchsociety.co.uk should get an answer there .
A good varied diet should help rejuvinate this pair , good purchase/rescue
Regards , Mick M.

Thank you, Mick, it looks like the boy is a black breasted. They are on a great diet now and spoiled, they started meeping and singing and they make alert noises to the washing machine and they fly around in the room in the evenings. I can't wait to see them get beautiful. My Javas looked awful when I bought them too and now they are beautiful and very cheeky !

The hen is fawn.

bugaboo5 wrote: The hen is fawn.

Thank you!

Sure thing! They are gorgeous pair. I'm sure with some TLC, both of them will be as good as new. Congratulations to you and your mother on this new pair!

Congratulations

congrats on your new birds!
The male is normal grey black breasted (ng BB)
and the hen look normal grey, she is not fawn.
fawn birds dont have black tails, they have fawn tails.

Oopsy daisy! I wasn't paying attention to the tail and was only noticing her body. I guess she is a normal gray with a lighter body.

She does look lighter. Is she lightback?

I'm thinking the male has Orange Breast mutation. Indicated by the lack of tears, and the orange cap spreading from his cheek patches. He also has abnormal throat markings. Not the typical zebra finch black and white throat bars. The chest does not (at a glance) show both black & orange feathers (which is certainly an awesome indicator). Birds can be both Black Breast & Orange Breast. They must receive each of these genes from both parents (2x Black Breast & 2x Orange Breast) to be fully Orange Breast or Black Breast. Single factor birds show some signs of the traits.

Anyway, I'd be betting Orange Breast for sure. I'm thinking a double factor. Orange breast tends to diminish or remove the black feathering.

Now I'm second guessing myself.

Play on this link. It may help you understand a bit better.
http://zebrafinch.info/colours/?language=en

As may this link.
http://zebrafinch.info/colours/genex.asp?language=en

Thank you all.
Yes, the boy has some orange down on top of his head in between the dark ones too.
They are my mother’s finches and she is in another country but I am glad I got them, if anything happens I will ‘import’ them to UK. They are happy little things now, the boy doesn’t stop eating and today I heard him sing a squeaky song over the phone. My mother loves them already and stuffs them with goodies. They are lucky little birds!

The male does NOT look OB to me...I have a lot of OB and OB BBs and the chest patch is always much more brown/orange than this. His chest looks stark black to me. He looks just like all my BBs. As for the hen, I also have quite few fawns and Lightbacks. It is hard to say about the color because its subtle and doesn't translate well over the internet but I agree the hen looks "light". Given the black tail, LB is not a bad guess. The only tricky thing here is that her tail doesn't have any bands which would indicate BB (maybe /BB) but her face doesn't look BB at all. Cant tie everything together so neatly.
Just my opinion,
Lori

Oh, Thank you Lori. The birds' tails are in pretty bad shape at this time, the hen's feathers are still growing so they might be in best shape a bit later in the year. The boy's chest bar is black indeed.

Yah, I'm pulling towards the no orange breast belief too.