FINCHforum

Hi all,

I was doing some research a little while ago and discovered that one of my Socs is a Black Brown. And apparently they don't breed/raise their young all that well.

Mine is a male that I am using as a foster and I was wondering if he may be the reason none of the 10 eggs (some of their own and some Cordon Bleu) hatched.

Does anyone here own/breed them? Have you had difficulties? Should I remove him from the foster cage?

Thanks for your input.
-Julie

We have had the same trouble and find that the American Pied is the best Society for fostering. We have also had black browns eat the eggs of species we have treid to have them foster. We have not had this experience with the American Pied variety. The European variety have more harring bine patterns in the breaxt and the American do not have much harring bine if any.

We have been told that the European Society bloodlines are not as keen to foster. All we can speak is from our own experience.

Sean

Are these the ones you are talking about being bad foster parents and eating eggs?

No, those look like chocolate pieds.




This is my Black Brown male. The Black Browns are much darker than the chocolates and they have a very bold and distinctive pattern on their bellies.

-Julie

OKAY good, i was starting to get worried. I thought i had those so mine should be good to foster then.

[IMG]http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk23 ... C00909.jpg[/IMG
[img][img]http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk23 ... C00911.jpg[/img]
Julie, here is mine and she has been a wonderful foster. She just hatched and is now feeding three owl finches. Also she just had a clutch of her own and has been a wonderful parent. I think it just all depends on the bird.

dfcauley - I don't think your Society is a Black-brown. It doesn't seem to have the strong herringbone (or scalloped) design on the stomach in the photo. Yours may well be a Chocolate self. That's great that she's a good foster and parent for you.

jamezyboo21 wrote:OKAY good, i was starting to get worried. I thought i had those so mine should be good to foster then.

I have the same chocolate pieds and I'll say they do make excellent fosters. I have a pair of the camel colored pieds, but they aren't as good. That might just be that particular pair though.

i cant tell really if they lay eggs because they stay in a nest for a few days then they move to a new nest and sometime the all split up and sleep in nests by themselves. now there sitting on two diffrent nests with zebra eggs in them but, i think they laid a few eggs to because there are more in there theb there was before they started using it.

I posted this question on a UK finch forum to test reactions.Some use 3 cocks to foster...some 2...others 2 cocks and a hen.
All said that certain birds made good fosters,others not.Those that were keen to foster were highly prized.
NONE thought that colour made any difference.
Paul.

poohbear wrote:I posted this question on a UK finch forum to test reactions.Some use 3 cocks to foster...some 2...others 2 cocks and a hen.
All said that certain birds made good fosters,others not.Those that were keen to foster were highly prized.
NONE thought that colour made any difference.
Paul.

Well surprisingly I have two hens and one cock. They all three will foster and love each other. I try to not let them raise any of their own babies because they are all crested and I have heard not to breed crested together. They did raise one clutch, but that's all.

poohbear wrote:I posted this question on a UK finch forum to test reactions.Some use 3 cocks to foster...some 2...others 2 cocks and a hen.
All said that certain birds made good fosters,others not.Those that were keen to foster were highly prized.
NONE thought that colour made any difference.
Paul.

Are you saying Paul, that the Black Brown Society finches could well be good foster parents?

All I can do is repeat my post...apart from my personal experience...a lot of my associates over here have no preference to colours ...it all depends on the birds.The ideal of course being birds that have raised their own families in the past and thus have chick rearing experience.
I don't like to disagree with others on here, but not one single person over here has noticed any difference whatsoever.
Dozens of specialist waxbill breeders over here use fosters, to try and increase numbers of what are now rare birds, since our European import ban was put in place.None have mentioned any colour preference for foster birds.
Paul.

Of my really good fosters, Felix is a pied, but Oscar is just like yours, Donna, and they are excellent parents. I think it does depend more on the individual bird rather than just color. I have some other Societies that I am hoping to bring along as fosters, and it is just a trial-and-error type thing. I hope some of them will work, as my Strawberries are sitting again, and Felix and Oscar really need a rest!

Sally wrote:Of my really good fosters, Felix is a pied, but Oscar is just like yours, Donna, and they are excellent parents. I think it does depend more on the individual bird rather than just color. I have some other Societies that I am hoping to bring along as fosters, and it is just a trial-and-error type thing. I hope some of them will work, as my Strawberries are sitting again, and Felix and Oscar really need a rest!

So Sally, will you give the strawberries a chance to do it on their own before fostering? I am thinking of getting a couple of males to have an extra set of foster also. But I really don't want to get rid of my female chocolate because I just love her. And I don't want to raise any societies.
I don't usually have any problems getting rid of the babies, but I cannot part with any of my original birds. Although my husband is encouraging me to rehome my silverbills because they keep wanting to nest and we believe that they are related. In fact, they are sitting on eggs now because it happend before I realized it and could toss them.