FINCHforum

I was told by a breeder that if you breed a fawn hen with a split for fawn male (looks same as a normal but with fawn gene) then you would have 80% fawn chicks.

All fawns would be both female and male.

The split normals you get would always be male.

Is this all correct?

Male wild color + Female wild color gives you 100% wildcolor males and females .

Male wild color SPLIT + Female wild color gives you
50% wild color males
50%wild color split males
50%wild color females
50% mutation ( brown ) females

Male Mutation + Female wild color gives you
wild color split males 100%
mutation color females 100%

Male wild color + Female mutation gives you
wild color split males 100%
wildcolor females 100%

Male wild color SPLIT + Female mutation gives you
mutation males 50%
wild color split males 50%
mutation females 50%
wild color females 50%

Male mutation + Female mutation gives you
males mutation 100%
females mutation 100%
this is not a good paring because the birds go down in size , color , health .... best to use is a split male with a mutation female .... so you could do like once a split son to the mother

good luck Ray

Male wild color SPLIT + Female mutation gives you
mutation males 50%
wild color split males 50%
mutation females 50%
wild color females 50%

You sure on this with bichenos? The breeder I spoke to have been breeding fawn bichenos for a long time and he says he always uses a split for fawn male with a fawn female, like you said, he said this is the best way to do it, except he says 1 in 4 or 5 chicks is a split and the other 4 are all fawns, that's 80% fawn colour chicks. He says any splits are always a male.

This goes against what you said, i'm fairly certain he said bichenos either were or were not sex linked, so it works different to most finches, not sure exactly what it was he said about that.

i am 100% sure about this

This is very interesting, Ray. I have two fawn (or brown, or mutation) hens. Both have been paired with normal males. One hen has only produced infertile eggs, so I think she may be old. The other hen has produced 8 babies, so the males should be split, and the hens normal. So I will keep all the males. I have another fawn hen coming, so I can put one of these young males with her. So I could put one of the split males back with his fawn mother, one time only?

I spoke to the breeder again and he's absolutely adamant about what he told me.

Fawn hen + split male cock

= Fawn hens and cocks + split cocks

He said hes been breeding birds for over 20 years and has always breed fawn bichenos and these are the results he gets, almost every nest of 5 chicks only 1 is a normal and its always a cock, the other 4 are fawns.

finchbob, where are you located? I'm assuming not in the USA, because fawn Owls are a fairly recent mutation here, with them being imported from Europe thru Canada.

UK

finchbob wrote:
Fawn hen + split male cock

= Fawn hens and cocks + split cocks

He said hes been breeding birds for over 20 years and has always breed fawn bichenos and these are the results he gets, almost every nest of 5 chicks only 1 is a normal and its always a cock, the other 4 are fawns.

First of all I know absolutely nothing about Owl Finch mutations so I'll just say that up front.

If a Fawn hen + Split Fawn Male = Fawn Hens/Cocks and Split Cocks - and Sally paired a Fawn hen to a normal Cock and only got normal babies (is this correct?) then I would guess it would have to be either sex-linked or it could also be autosomal, and it is evidently recessive or males could not be "split".

I'm going to further guess that if this pair can not produce split to fawn hens, i.e., females can not be split to fawn, that it must be sex-linked.
However - even if this is the case, this pair should still produce visually normal hens that are not split, as well as visually normal males that are.

If it is indeed sex linked and the male is split, then he SHOULD produce Normal hens AND Fawn hens - not just fawn hens.

Assuming that it's sex linked recessive, a split to fawn cock will be able to produce visually fawn and normal hens, and the percentage when paired to a normal hen would be 50% Fawn hens, 50% Normal Hens, 50% /Fawn Cocks, 50% Normal cocks.

The thing with statistics is they don't always pan out exactly as they should because they rely on LARGE numbers. In that pairing you could get 50/50 of each or you might very well get 100% fawn hens.
It's a coin toss..

But I don't understand the 80/20 ratio with how the inheritance would work for either scenarios (sex linked or autosomal).

If it's true that you'll get 50% fawns (males/females) 25% split males and 25% normal females, does this make deciding on how to sell on the offspring a bit difficult? Most people are going to want a fawn female + split male but since you'd be getting normal females from that aswell you could accidently end up selling a fawn male or female + normal female. With bichenos being difficult to sex I could see this becoming a problem.

Ray i've reworded this you wrote for my txt file, it's still correct yeah? Just looks a bit easier to take in

Male wild color SPLIT + Female mutation gives you
mutation males 25%
mutation females 25%
wild color split males 25%
wild color females 25%

What I don't get is the following combination seems the best but people say it isn't... This pairing results in a good ratio of birds for the pairing that people want to breed, the split male with the fawn female.

Male Mutation + Female wild color gives you
wild color split males 100%
mutation color females 100%

The reason is you get 50% fawns and 50% splits out of it, which is a bit better than the 50% fawns (male+female), 25% split male 25% normal female you get from the other paring. Why is this one not considered the best pairing?

Now also, if you go ahead and pair a split male with a fawn female, you get 25% fawn male, 25% fawn female, 25% split male, 25% normal female. In order to either re-use these birds for a breeding program, or even sell them on to someone else who is buying, you'll now need to pair them in two different ways?

Firstly you would pair the 25% fawn females back with the 25% split males, which is the pairing you were doing to get these in the first place, but then you're still left with the 25% fawn males and 25% normal females, would you now pair those together too and either breed or sell them as a pair like that? The resulting birds from breeding these would be back to where you started, 50% fawn females 50% split males.

i am in a very deep .... didn't know you would get that deep into genetics . as said before by someone else that the outcome in colors or split or mutation is by the big numbers and not by a pair birds , you can *calculate* what an outcome would be or what you hoping for . the thing with breeding a mutation with another mutation is that the size goes downwards , more sick birds with problems , color fading , etc .... this goes up for all birds ( i can remember my breeding years with silverbills and there mutations ) , the best pairing to get a good mutation will always be a male wildcolor bird split for mutation with an mutation female . if you want i can send you whole pages from a book with all kinda outcomings and what the ideal pairing would be .

Ray

finchbob wrote: does this make deciding on how to sell on the offspring a bit difficult? Most people are going to want a fawn female + split male but since you'd be getting normal females from that aswell you could accidently end up selling a fawn male or female + normal female. With bichenos being difficult to sex I could see this becoming a problem.

I guess it definitely gives you incentive to either DNA test your normals that you produce or get REALLY good at sexing them

finchbob wrote: What I don't get is the following combination seems the best but people say it isn't... This pairing results in a good ratio of birds for the pairing that people want to breed, the split male with the fawn female.

Male Mutation + Female wild color gives you
wild color split males 100%
mutation color females 100%

Perhaps the reason this pairing isn't considered ideal is because by virtue of the way it is inherited, the only mutation birds you will get out of it are hens? Whereas with a /Fawn cock x Mutation hen you will get both fawn hens AND fawn cocks?
The benefit of this pairing IMO is that you will automatically be able to visually sex the offspring.
But if your goal is to produce fawns in both sexes it will be "more work," in so far as you'd have to pair the cocks you produce to unrelated fawn hens to then get fawn cocks.

finchbob wrote: Now also, if you go ahead and pair a split male with a fawn female, you get 25% fawn male, 25% fawn female, 25% split male, 25% normal female. In order to either re-use these birds for a breeding program, or even sell them on to someone else who is buying, you'll now need to pair them in two different ways?

Firstly you would pair the 25% fawn females back with the 25% split males, which is the pairing you were doing to get these in the first place, but then you're still left with the 25% fawn males and 25% normal females, would you now pair those together too and either breed or sell them as a pair like that? The resulting birds from breeding these would be back to where you started, 50% fawn females 50% split males.

I'm not sure I understand where you are going with this. Why would you need to pair the birds back to their parents in order to sell them or re-use/breed them?
I really can't fathom any good reason to actively/intentionally inbreed any bird - even "new" mutations can be perpetuated by selective out crossing. Yes - it takes a lot more time, but it also maintains the integrity of the mutation MUCH more with a LOT less genetic hiccups.
If that's not what you meant by breeding back then forgive me but when I hear "breed back" it usually means inbreeding to the parents and/or siblings.

If you HAVE to sell your offspring in pairs, my suggestion would be to get two unrelated pairs of birds - perhaps getting a Fawn cock x Normal hen, and another pair of unrelated birds that are /Fawn cock x Fawn Hen

This way - the Fawn hens produced from Pair 1 can be sold paired to the /Fawn cocks from Pair 2.
It just requires you to sex the normals from Pair 2 in order match them up properly.
Since all cocks from Pair 1 will be /Fawn - they could be sold with Fawn hens from Pair 2.

nixity wrote:

finchbob wrote: What I don't get is the following combination seems the best but people say it isn't... This pairing results in a good ratio of birds for the pairing that people want to breed, the split male with the fawn female.

Male Mutation + Female wild color gives you
wild color split males 100%
mutation color females 100%

Perhaps the reason this pairing isn't considered ideal is because by virtue of the way it is inherited, the only mutation birds you will get out of it are hens? Whereas with a /Fawn cock x Mutation hen you will get both fawn hens AND fawn cocks?
The benefit of this pairing IMO is that you will automatically be able to visually sex the offspring.
But if your goal is to produce fawns in both sexes it will be "more work," in so far as you'd have to pair the cocks you produce to unrelated fawn hens to then get fawn cocks.

finchbob wrote: Now also, if you go ahead and pair a split male with a fawn female, you get 25% fawn male, 25% fawn female, 25% split male, 25% normal female. In order to either re-use these birds for a breeding program, or even sell them on to someone else who is buying, you'll now need to pair them in two different ways?

Firstly you would pair the 25% fawn females back with the 25% split males, which is the pairing you were doing to get these in the first place, but then you're still left with the 25% fawn males and 25% normal females, would you now pair those together too and either breed or sell them as a pair like that? The resulting birds from breeding these would be back to where you started, 50% fawn females 50% split males.

I'm not sure I understand where you are going with this. Why would you need to pair the birds back to their parents in order to sell them or re-use/breed them?
I really can't fathom any good reason to actively/intentionally inbreed any bird - even "new" mutations can be perpetuated by selective out crossing. Yes - it takes a lot more time, but it also maintains the integrity of the mutation MUCH more with a LOT less genetic hiccups.
If that's not what you meant by breeding back then forgive me but when I hear "breed back" it usually means inbreeding to the parents and/or siblings.

If you HAVE to sell your offspring in pairs, my suggestion would be to get two unrelated pairs of birds - perhaps getting a Fawn cock x Normal hen, and another pair of unrelated birds that are /Fawn cock x Fawn Hen

This way - the Fawn hens produced from Pair 1 can be sold paired to the /Fawn cocks from Pair 2.
It just requires you to sex the normals from Pair 2 in order match them up properly.
Since all cocks from Pair 1 will be /Fawn - they could be sold with Fawn hens from Pair 2.

Not talking about inbreeding, I have 4 pairs, 4 fawn hens, 4 split males - I can pair back the young with each other (not brothers and sisters together) as pairs of split male + fawn female and also fawn male + normal female.