FINCHforum

I have bred a rather unusual coloured finch. He is still very young (I can't remember exactly how old) but is weaned. He is lightly pied, just a dot on his head and the rest of him is normal grey.

He has an orange patch on one side of his face, and absolutely NOTHING on the other side. Just grey. Not covered by any white pied markings. His stripes are very faint, like they haven't fully developed. He has two brothers (fawn and fawn pied) whose stripes are pretty much fully visual, completely different to him.

Could he possibly be a halfsider (how common/rare are halfsiders)? Or is this something else? It's not a health problem, is it? Is he male?

I'll try and get some photos of him tomorrow and post them.

Thanks for your help.

I have heard the term half sider a few times, but haven't seen one so as to make a comparison. Really wouldn't be able to tell you as the how common / rare they are either. If you are able to get some pictures you could try posting them at this site. (Although the kind folks here always like looking at pics as well, even if we don't have a clue as to what we are looking at. )

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/zebrafinch/messages

Guess the mutation is one of their favorite games over there. And there are a number of genetic experts who would be well versed as to what the defining traits of a half sider would be. I will warn you though, they can get a little arrogant on occasion, but they definitely do know what they are talking about.

Thanks for the link, I will see if they can tell me what's going on.

On closer inspection, he doesn't quite fit the description of a halfsider. He simply looks like a female with one orange cheek. Here's the photos I took today:

Here he is:


And here's what he looks like on the other side:




Here's a pic of his brother from the same clutch to compare how developed the stripes, chestnut flanks, etc should have been by now:

WOW!

Definately different.

Never seen that before

Cool looking little finch you got there. I'm taking you're guessing it's a female cause it hasn't been singing? Don't know that I've ever seen a female with an orange cheek patch. On the other forum that I mentioned, someone posted some pics recently of a hen with what they called "ghost cheek patches" but they were a cream color.

It would probably be classified as a halfsider. Though it is not showing full male markings on the cheek patch side. Maybe a quarter sider
Halfsiders have alwasy proved to be infertile. It would be interesting to see if yours lays fertile eggs?? Check out this site , they have a nice pic of halfsider. www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/7134/zebras.h... - 4k

On it's cheek side it does look as though it has what seems to be the makings of breast bars. Am I mistaken?