FINCHforum

Cindy

This is a 3 year old English bird who I paired to a fawn pied American hen, I was told he was a fawn but I'm pretty sure he is not, he's a very light silver color I've never seen before. His young are feathering up similarly to him. His feathers are all fawn on the edges fading to silver inside, his tail bars are brown, and his belly is a bright buff color, and his cheek patches are a burnt orange, not the bright orange of a gray zebra. His tear mark is faint and reduced.

I've seen a few pictures of birds that look similar to this lately. I'm wondering if he is a fawn Florida Silver - hetrozygous for Florida Fancy. Not sure - just an idea.

He does look like a Florida Silver.

I'd say recessive silver.
http://www.efinch.com/species/rszeb.htm

This sounds about right, no?
That has the diluted black markings, full-strength orange cheeks (though nothing about burnt orange), and silvery grey tones.

It doesn't mention the tail bar color.

A SF Florida Fancy (Florida Silver) would be a bit lighter, I believe. And the black markings would be lighter too.

You know him better than I do, of course, but I think he looks more like this bird (Recessive Silver):
http://www.efinch.com/birdpix2/recsilver1.jpg

....and less like this bird (SF Florida Fancy):
http://www.efinch.com/birdpix4/sfff.jpg

I should note that I've seen some variation on the cheek colour.
I've seen some males that have a bright orange and others who have more of a burnt sienna.

He's more like the recessive but has very pale tail bars and a very faint tear mark of almost gray. He's a unique one.

Well, whatever he is, he's lovely! That's for certain!

On one of the FB pages some people who sounded like they had been around for a while were discussing the recessive silver and saying they thought it was actually an Isabel of the grey strain rather than the fawn side of things. They felt there never was a "recessive silver" as such. Who knows?

Here are some pictures of a "mystery female" a friend of mine owns. Yes, she is pied, but ignoring that... She is a silver color, but when paired with a fawn male, she only produced fawns, including fawn males. So she has to be fawn and not grey - but she is silver. Some of her chicks also have the mottled silver feathers, so I am betting that she is a FS fawn. She reminded me of your male.

Cindy

Anybody have any ideas on what Cody is?

Cody threw two chicks with his coloration when paired to a fawn pied that I'm sure didn't carry any silver genes herself, so it has to be a dominant mutation, not recessive silver. But his orange markings are dark, so it can't be dominant silver either! Is Florida Fancy dominant; as in can a fancy paired to a fawn still produce fancies?

I'm very confuzzled on what this guy is!

This is one of his chicks coloring up now - he's silver too, with the same dark marks.

Florida Fancy is a what they call co-dominant. It shows partially when there is only one gene, and fully when there are two. So a full Florida Fancy is white with orange - no silver or grey. A 1/2 Florida Fancy is a silver color - 1/2 way between dark grey and no grey. If this is the case, 1/2 his chicks will show as Florida Silver and 1/2 will be normal. If you just had the two chicks this time and both were FS, that's just the luck of the draw. But you did rule out any totally recessive genes for sure! He isn't a grey isabel, for instance, or recessive silver.

Aspen

Ah, so Cody sounds like a Florida Silver, then?

Two of his chicks were silver, and two were fawn. Cody doesn't carry pied, so the chicks don't show any white marking like the mother.

If there are fawn chicks, then Cody has to at least carry fawn. If one of the silver chicks is a hen, you can do a test breeding back to Cody. Then if you end up with full Florida Fancies, then you have confirmed what he is. (Test breeding like this is done regularly by breeders in many species. Not to be overdone or you can run into problems.)