Owl finch question regarding chest color

[cindy]

One of my newest owl finches has a very solid distinctive light brown chest, only above the bar line. It looks kind of like a chocolate milk color. The color under the chest bar is white. There is no sign of molting. What does this mean?

This is the new male that is devoted to his devoted wife on eggs, he feeds her so she does not leave the nest except for water.

[dfcauley]

Hi Cindy,

I have some some owls with a "dirty " looking chest. I think after it goes through a few molts that it will lighten up.

It is so neat that the male feeds the hen. I have seen this only once in my aviary and think it is the coolest and sweetest thing ever!!!

[cindy]

Donna, I went in to get a picture of him and the female was out. I had not seen her for days but briefly once. He was in sitting while she went to get a drink and eat a little on her own. He is now back out and perched near the entrance to the nest. I can't see in this nest but I know there are eggs in there. The other nest for the pair next to it had 8 eggs in it last night.

I decided not to take a picture or fuss to much in that room. They are very tolerant and do not thrash around like some of my older pairs...but why risk it when there are egg at stake!

Thank you for the reply on the chest color. They are all just over a yr old.

[L in Ontario]

I'm so glad you decided to NOT take a photo at this time. Those precious eggs are not worth the risk.

[cindy]

Liz, I wish I could peek in the tube nest to get a count...the other nest definately looks like they stopped at 8. Hope some if not all are fertile. I have waited almost 2 yrs for baby owls from my other pairs.

The new pairs are so much more settled than the pairs that were brought in from Canada. I have debated removing them grom the gb flight and putting them in their own space. Everytime I go to do that it looks like they are nesting again....

[FeatherHarp]

Good luck with your Owls. I hope you get some healthy cute Owl babies.

[cindy]

Thank you Deborah!! Me to!

[Domenic]

I hope you can get a picture as soon as the nesting situation settles. My owls chicks have dirty chests too, but I'm sure it will clear as they grow.

[cindy]

They are both into sitting right now, that room is so quiet, both pairs are in their nests...I try not to disturb them.

I just an order of new breeding cage in and will be reworking the zebra/mutations end of the "bird room". Domenic when the room gets set up and production starts and I can get good penguin eggs going we will have to try the egg shipping again, I can get eggs from 2 pairs now to make pairs...I can send you a few of each.

I have 2 pair of Florda fancy and will be setting up 2 pairs of Florida silvers fairly soon. Black cheek and continental CFW and of course fawns...you can have your pick of eggs!!! If you are incubating eggs it should be easy and you don't have to worry about fosters...we will wait until the freeze and winter are done with!!!

Another adventure in shipping eggs!!! Shall we try shaftail also? I might be getting some fawns from a local breeder, she even has creams from time to time!!

[annague]

I love your story about your attentive male owl. What a sweetie! Here's hoping for a ton of cute owlettes for you!

[cindy]

Thank you Anna...I hope so to!!!

[Domenic]

Cindy I would love to have another go at shipping eggs. My fosters have become very good, so no worries there. They have a better hatch rate than my incubator. I only use the incubator as a last resort, and it seems to work best when the eggs are already 1/3-2/3 incubated. On the other hand I have a very good survivability rate now when I handfeed, so if I sense anything going wrong this time I won't hesitate to intervene.

I have been wanting to send you eggs for the longest time but it seems I don't have anything to send you. I do have gouldians, owls, BCCB's, and goldbreasts laying, but since none of these have raised a successful clutch I am not ready to take eggs from them yet. I now have a pure white zebra pair that I can't wait to see the offspring of. When they have eggs this summer, if you are interested in all-white zebs (hopefully they produce whites and not some oddballs), I would love to send you some eggs too!

I must admit, the little egg you sent me has been one of my funnest finch ventures so far!

[cindy]

Domenic, I just got new cags in that fit nicely into a space in the utility room. I am redoing (today) my breeding pairs of zebras, resting some and setting up nest in others. The room has a nice thick door...with the numbers of zebra mutations I have it gets a bit noisy with begging sounds!!!

I want to get the penguins set up and would have done so earlier if the crested pied male had not mated with one of the females. The pied removes the orange with white in the male offspring. It makes for an interesting look but is not a true penguin. In order to get the orange back both females have to be paired with normal males.

Once I am sure the makings are good in the first clutch, I can send you eggs from the second clutch marked so you know what is what...that way hopefully out of the eggs sent you will be able to do pairs.

Another I am setting up are 2 prs of Florida Silvers by taking FF males and pairing them with normal females. The males my FF/FS produce are so white the marking pop. They all produce large clutches (one fed out 8 young, went through a lot of boiled eggs!). Taking eggs from the four pairs would allow you to hopefully get pairs out of those for FF and FS if you like. You can even take the FS and pair it with FF. There is a fawn version but I have not gotten that far yet...I do have some nice big fawn females with really nice deep color I could pair with a FF but I am waiting on fawn males (have not seen any at the shows)

I have fawns and the black cheek and Continental CFW...their babies/young are really pretty, I love the contrast of the white with black.

Your white zebras would be a lovely addition to the group. I love white birds, something about the softness about them is pleasing to me.

I'll drop you an email and let you know how it is going so you can prepare...hopefully by that time the countries mid section will thraw out! PS...once we get this down pat we can try the shaftails again!

[cindy]

forgot to add the FF male and FS male pics to the post

Added the Continental CFW parents also.

[annague]

Very beautiful zebras!!