New Mutations of Shaft tails in the States

[Babs _Owner]

cindy

The second picture above reminds me of an angry woman waiting for her late order at the Red Lobster (w/ the bib).

" Hey HEY!! We are WAITING over here!!" **giggle**

[cindy]

I have been advised by some old-time breeders that you never sell your F1 or even F2 generation of rare or endangered species, only swap bloodlines with other breeders with the same species.

Holding onto young until I have enough to make future pairs.... swapping some with the other two breeders that were in on the deal to bring these into the states.

[lovezebs]

cindy

How many pairs were there altogether , between you and the other breeders? Are there enough birds to sustain this mutation without too close relationship?

[cindy]

cindy

How many pairs were there altogether , between you and the other breeders? Are there enough birds to sustain this mutation without too close relationship?

Yes there are enough. The birds can be bred to fawns and normal to create splits and to add new blood into the lines. Gray and opal are recessive.

[lovezebs]

cindy

I noticed in your pictures, that some of the Opals have a red beak, and some orange. Is that a gender differences, or something to do with the mutations?

[cindy]

no not a gender or sex related thing, both sexes can have any of these colors. There are orange, red, pink (had these I the past!) and yellow....

from efinch "There is one subspecies of the Shaft-tail finch known as the Heck's Shaft-tail (P. acuticauda hecki) which has a bright coral red beak. The red color is dominant over the yellow and intermediate birds are often produced when trying to develop yellow-billed birds from red-beaked birds. Because of the early popularity of the red beak and its dominant inheritance, the yellow beak variety is rarely seen now in US aviculture. The reality is that in the wild there is a smooth transition of color from the yellow-beaked variety of the western part of their range to the red-beaked variety in the eastern part of the range. Because of this, many ornithologists do not recognize the Heck's as a distinct subspecies, but rather a morph within the population."

*Zebras the beak of a male is red and hen orange...there are yellow beaked zebras it is a recessive mutation you can breed for... male can have anywhere from a yellow to orange beak, hens can have yellow to a light orange beak. I also had yellow beaks at one time.

[MariusStegmann]

I almost bought some white shaft-tails a couple of weeks ago. I decided against it because you can't breed white to white. You have to create splits and then get your whites in that way.

[cindy]

was it like the creamino o the right or all white with red eyes (what some call albino)

[lovezebs]

cindy

I love the creamino in your picture. What a beautiful bird !

[lovezebs]

cindy

Hi Cindy.

I know these two boys are somewhat different.
I think #1 is normal.
But what then is # 2 ?
Sorry for the poor pictures, but my phone camera is havibg one of those days .

[MariusStegmann]

cindy No, it was the white on the right, but with normal eyes. I was told that you can't breed the white to white, because the resultant chicks are weak or blind etc.

[MariusStegmann]

lovezebs To my understanding F1 would be offspring of the imported birds. F2 would be the the offspring of the F1's and F3 the offspring of the F2's.

[slwatson]

Cindy

What beautiful birds! I love the colors of that opal hen

[MariusStegmann]

I saw a cage of huge shaft-tails at a Petshop the other day. They looked really like Shaft-tails on steroids. I wanted to buy some, but they were way too expensive. The price was R400 a pair, and I normally pay R200 a pair. The owner did not say that there were anything special about these birds, so I didn't mention the size. They were about 4 - 5 mm bigger than the normal shaft-tails. The difference was as obvious as normal zebras compared to European show zebras. Apparently a breeder decided to sell all his birds. I thought that the shaft-tails were perhaps not purebred birds, perhaps crossed with Parson's finches, a few generations ago.

[MariusStegmann]

lovezebs Sorry I misunderstood your post. I see now that you were talking about your birds on the photos. Please forgive me.