FINCHforum

Thus far I'd only produced one pastel and wasn't paying enough attention to the clutch to notice until the baby had really begun to feather - I thought it was just another blue, and then I noticed something was different.

With this (well really, two separate) newest clutch - I paid really close attention when I saw a difference in the mouth markings.

The two smallest babies (the one on top, and the one directly underneath him) are actually "adopted." Their parents tossed the whole clutch while I was at work (three babies) because I ran out of canary seed and it is the ONLY thing they will feed.

The third, who is much smaller, and I am not sure will make it, I had to give to a pair of societies because the foster parents (Bella and Mystic) were not feeding him as much due to his incredible size difference.

In any case - the three on the right will sure be pastels.
The two getting head feathers are both blues (and female).


This is an early shot of the three babies (two blues, one pastel) from Bella and Mystic:


At first glance, I thought the baby top left (the pastel) was a SF Silver.. they will look almost identical; where you'll see the difference is when the pin feathers start to come in on the wings - they will remain pink, whereas on the pastels, they start to come in as a light greyish blue color.
It makes sense - if you think about it.
A Pastel is just a SF Pastel Blue; and a SF Pastel Blue with a WB is the same thing.

I have noticed similar patterns in SF Yellows vs Dilute babies - I confused a LOT of Dilutes which actually turned out to be LB SF Yellows, because they look identical at the beginning, but you see the immediate change when the wings start to pin out.

Here is an example of the SF Pastel Blue (LB), notice the bright pink wing feather buds vs the darker buds coming in on the blue in the top left:


You can start seeing this change in color very early, too, which also helps to distinguish between SF Yellow Silvers & Pastels, and SF Yellows & Dilutes.

Informative post. I wish everyone would call them by the same name. I think the pastel term as suggested in "The Gouldian Finch" book by Evans and Fidler is the way to go.(been busy reading all my new books ) Glad to see you using it too

I know - it's actually really difficult to convert over to the preferred nomenclature because the common names are what you generally see used. Although I prefer it - I don't find myself using it when talking to the average customer because it is VERY confusing for someone who knows nothing other than "Pastel, Silver, Dilute" etc.

Even in the shows, the classifications for the Gouldians are the visual names (Dilute, Yellow, etc.) - and when you see them being offered for sale by most vendors in the US, you will usually see them offered by their "lay" names.

I added the information to my website as an FYI but continue to use the general naming in my genetics pages otherwise I think it would just cause people's heads to spin.

Here the babies are now - almost all grown up

They are simply beautiful Tiffany

The chicks look great! And a clean nestbox? You must have just cleaned it out? Sweet!

L in Ontario wrote:The chicks look great! And a clean nestbox? You must have just cleaned it out? Sweet!

It's probably a lot dirtier than it really looks.. lol, the poops are good and dry so most fell to the center of the nest.
I did clean it out, but that was about two weeks ago

Thanks Janine!

awww... nice, healthy , beautiful babies!!!!