chasing the perfect SHAPE (Zebras)

[40whacks]

I see many folks focusing on the color mutations..and the stacking of these different combos. But shape, at least in an exhibition type bird is as important. Multiple mutations can affect size and shape greatly......so how important is keeping the right conformation to you???

[Flight Feathers]

Hi there, what kind of shape do you need?

[Stuart whiting]

40whacks

Type is very important especially if you intend on exhibiting yer zebras, without type there'll be absolutely no hope

Type is a formation of the correct size and shape, it can take a serious breeder many years to carefully gain the right birds within a quality zebra finch stud,

In me previous years I've bred and exhibited zebras for over 20 years and bred literally several hundred zebras in that time, successfully exhibiting zebras at champion level for a number of years one certainly needs to be on the ball and aware of changes within the zebra fancy.

Basically one would be aiming for zebras as big as possible but at the same time they need to be perfectly shaped IE being a loverly round shape with no deformities of pushed out or dipped chest and back,
Nice round head that is broad between its eyes and with the eyes being central to the head, also showing plenty of back skull on top of the head,

The shoulders need to be broad aswell so the head looks well positioned with a thick neck to the rest of the body,

Wing carriage needs to be tight without dropped or crossed wings and with a nice short tail, long tails are a fault and will impede the bird and throw the overall shape of the bird off cue.

Colour is obviously important too as is the overall quality of feather,

A yellow feathered bird should have tight feathering and have good deep colour whereas a buff feathered bird will have slightly looser feathering and appear to have more fluffy feathering along the flanks of the bird and not such a deep colour, pretty much the same as canary feathering.

However this is all very well if one is serious about exhibition zebras but if the average person is not interested in exhibiting zebras then to me there'd be no real need for being so critical as regards to size and shape,

Be lucky

[Flight Feathers]

Ok thanks! That's quite interesting actually. I've only thought out about colors so far but I ace noticed some zebras are definitely smaller, that's another reasons why I swapped my pairs. One of my male produced babies bigger than him, so I put him with my best breeding female and the results are amazing- 7 babies ( 1 died as nestling ) but all other 6 came out at 2 weeks old and now at 3 wks old they are bigger than parents and learning to feed on their own!

[Stuart whiting]

Ok thanks! That's quite interesting actually. I've only thought out about colors so far but I ace noticed some zebras are definitely smaller, that's another reasons why I swapped my pairs. One of my male produced babies bigger than him, so I put him with my best breeding female and the results are amazing- 7 babies ( 1 died as nestling ) but all other 6 came out at 2 weeks old and now at 3 wks old they are bigger than parents and learning to feed on their own!

That's very good, glad you managed to breed some zebies, at first it's all a big learning curve, well done

[finchlyn]

I am starting to get into breeding the mutations of zebras. I know the show standards here in the US are following England's standards. I just am not into big zebras. Same with the American budgie vs the English budgies. Part of the reasons I like the finches is because they are small. I also breed gouldians and feel the same way with the wild bird size vs the "show" size. I have found the bigger the bird the less active they are. The slower they are, etc. I love the natural busy nature of finches. I guess I will never try to show. I did buy a couple pair of show quality zebras but what I found was they were just too inactive and pooped bigger messes. ;) I will stick to my wild zebra size and would even love to find some smaller timor zebras ! To each's own and good we all like different things