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I'm fairly new to zebras, and this little one is from my second clutch. Momma is a chestnut flanked white, and dad is a normal grey. This baby is the only one that has been out of the nest so far, but from the remaining 3 in the nest, I see 2 others identical to this, and one looks like a pied. Wahat would you call this color? There are no tear markings, and the tail markings are the same color as the body. Excuse the mess of the little guy, the entrance to the nest seems to be where they like to leave their droppings, and this one sat in it for a bit before he (or she) came out, making a mess of himself. Thanks for any help!

Hard to tell for sure before they colour up. But I do know... it's cute!

Be interesting when it's all coloured up to see if it's not a silver. Adorable little fellow.

It appears it will be a fawn. ??

http://www.efinch.com/species/fawnzeb.htm

Thanks for the input! I am so curious as to what they will finish looking like. Could this one be considered fawn though, even if the tear markings are missing? The tail markings are very, very light as well. All of the body feathers are light, with darker tips. The picture kind of shows it, but it looks a little more like a laced effect in person. The rest of that clutch fledged yesterday, there is another identical to the one in question, a pied, and a normal grey one with super thick tear markings, unlike any of the others I've had. These guys are so much fun, and I have so much to learn about their genetics!

i had 5 batches of Zebs... some were this color, I always thought it was fawn.
Cutie whatever he ends up being!!!

Yes it's very possible this chick will be a fawn when it colours up. My fawn babies had very light tail markings and no teardrops at first too. Here's pics of my Zeb fawn chicks a few days old and then coloured up. One male and three females.

They are beautiful! I love the brown/tan color they have. Mine doesn't have this though, they are more silvery, and the feathers have two colors on them, like a light to dark gradient, making them look lacy almost. I'll be sure to take pics as they grow up, to see how they change. Hard to say when they are this young I guess.

What color are the parents? They look to have some phaeo markings. The young can change a lot from juvienile molt to adult molt. The lace design in the wings might stay. It is surely more than just a fawn. Here is a pic of one I hand fed. Notice the varigated wing markings (the one on my thumb... the other 2 are light versions)

The one with it's tail on my wrist looks a lot like your youngster.This is the sane one that was on my thumb above.


Now at 5 weeks.. The one that was on my thumb is the fuzzy one. The one on the left of him you can still see the wing lace.


Now a picture of those 2 today He is a Black face(no white between his eye and tearmark) silver phaeo She is a silver phaeo Also notice his cheek patches are etching out of the circle to the top of the head. I had one one time that the red went completely over the head and connected to the opposit cheek patch.
In the last picture you can clearly see the wing markings, thier color is silver on top and reddish on the bottom



I love this coloration of the zebras... Please continue to post pistures... I would love to see what developes. Also What are the parents?

Yes! That is exactly the color and lacy-looking pattern I'm talking about. Would you say I have a silver phaeo? What *makes* one? The genetic background of it I mean? The father is a normal grey, and mother is chestnut flanked white (I think so anyway- she is all white). I picked the parents, and another pair, up at a poultry/cage bird sale this spring. The man they came from is very into birds, though mostly waterfowl and poultry, and now I am curious as to what he produces for Zebras. I didn't really ask, as all the ones he had for sale just looked like your normal greys and CFW's. I can take some pictures of all of them tomorrow to post.

What produced these babies were probably a black face and a cream phaeo. They were colony breeding late in the winter. I cage everyone and these got abandoned...hence the need to hand feed. Many people call phaeos isabel..... I am no expert on the color mutations but have dabbled breeding these guys for years. Check out this guy. He probably is the one to learn genetic and mutations from. Check out the pictures of all the mutations he breeds on his site.
www.zebrafinch.com/

We have a few birds that look similar to yours, but have a much more pedestrian background than those of Candace's. They are just your basic single factor Florida Fancy. http://www.efinch.com/species/ffzeb.htm They originated from a white male (Frost) that is a very dilute FF/CFW split. We had paired him with what we thought was a fawn hen (Tehya), but she had some silvery lacing through out, so as found out later, she apparently was a single factor FF hen. The odd thing was that the SF FF's didn't show up until the next generation. We paired some normal looking males with two different fawn hens and got a whole pile of the fawnish looking birds like you have, both male and female.

Here's a picture of Frost with one of his SF/FF grandfinches.
Turns out when I was trying to find out what mutation these guys were I posted some pictures on the Yahoo finch forum and the genetic experts over there identified our normal looking males as being SF FF as well. They are very similar to normals but there are subtle differences. Your normal male could very well be one as well.

Here's a picture of one of Frost's boys (Izzy) with his SF FF offspring (Fitz)
Does your male look anything like Izzy? For such a "plain" looking little guy, Izzy and his honey Quienne (She's a fawnish looking hen that could be SF FF as well) sure have made some beautiful babies. His older brother, Kaleo looks just like him and when we paired him with a fawn pied hen they produced some SF FF chicks too.

Florida Fancy is known as Isabel in Europe. Same mutation. Phaeo, as I understand it has the reddish tone. My male has blackface in his background due to the fact that he has no white between the eye and tear mark, As on Nagdabit's his does have the white...thus a different mutation.I would agree his is a FF. There are many, many mutations of zebras and some look very similar. There are also so many crosses of mutation...such as the ones I posted, that it is hard to really lable them sometimes.
I love experimenting with the colors though.... I end up with some interesting looking birds
Who knows....you may have created something unique

Also as pointed out, many times what is in the background of your parent finches is unknown so new mutaions can crop up with the new generation. I am sure someone getting one of my blackfaces would be surprized to see a light isabel come out of them.... but it could happen

Here are a few pics...

Dad (on the left in the first pic):



Mom:


And the little guy in question again: