FINCHforum

Posted: **Sun Aug 07, 2016 8:38 am**

I was at the local bird store yesterday looking at the canaries, when I saw a 'funny' looking one....turns out it was called a saffron finch. I looked them up on finchinfo.com, and they seem to be a more aggressive species....does anyone have any personal experience with these?

I've been half considering going back for it as I've never seen one for sale before....they seem to be quite rare around here.

Posted: **Sun Aug 07, 2016 10:34 am**

Hello, I don't have any but saw your message and I had never heard of them either until I looked it up because someone was selling a male on craigs list here in ma, what I read was they can go in with weavers,they are identical to there behavior sometimes eaven fighting with there own when not breeding and should be kept in large avaries,maybe someone else will have some advice also good luck if you try him

Posted: **Mon Aug 08, 2016 2:43 am**

Hi there,

I've had these about 15 years ago,

I got to the stage of having eggs in the nest but the parents unfortunately deserted the nest for some reason, possibly something spooked em,

Anyhow these are quite aggressive species of finch and should ideally be kept in a cage or avairy on there own,

Diet is mainly foreign finch but can also add a small amount of mixed canary in the mix aswell

Posted: **Mon Aug 08, 2016 9:25 pm**

They are a South American bird and kept in Brazil and Argentina and a lot of other countries there. They do call them canaries of the earth there. The song is nice and quite easy to sex. The ones in pet shops are usually males, very rarely females. The importers don't want you breeding them. I had a few and I don't know why I sold them? I may get another male and try to cross it with a canary hen.

Jerry

Posted: **Tue Aug 09, 2016 2:02 am**

BigBear0007 wrote: They are a South American bird and kept in Brazil and Argentina and a lot of other countries there. They do call them canaries of the earth there. The song is nice and quite easy to sex. The ones in pet shops are usually males, very rarely females. The importers don't want you breeding them. I had a few and I don't know why I sold them? I may get another male and try to cross it with a canary hen.

Jerry

Hi there mate,

Yes I agree that you possibly could use a canary hen to cross a saffron finch with, us in England and Europe would call this a mule, although a proper exhibition mule is with a a native British finch but I've seen a few foreign finch mules in the past,
IE alaro finch, hooded Siskins, green singing finches etc.

Didn't know if you knew but the majority of mules are inferile and just purely bred for exhibition and singing purposes,

As far as I'm aware of its only been a few Siskin mules that have proved to be fertile but is rare but saying that this is how the red factor canary came about with the use of the black hooded Siskins

You mention about the locals only supplying only cock birds because they didn't want you to breed !!.....it is worth mentioning that this is probably different now because as for a number of years the trapping and import / export of such birds has been banned, same as African and Australian import ban

Posted: **Tue Aug 09, 2016 9:29 am**

In the U.S., we don't have classes for mules at all, so there would be no point in breeding one purposely for show. I don't know how it is in Canada, but the Canadian clubs pretty much parallel the U.S. clubs as far as rules. I'm speaking about finch clubs/rules, I don't know what the canary people do.

Posted: **Tue Aug 09, 2016 12:09 pm**

Stuart whiting wrote:
BigBear0007 wrote: They are a South American bird and kept in Brazil and Argentina and a lot of other countries there. They do call them canaries of the earth there. The song is nice and quite easy to sex. The ones in pet shops are usually males, very rarely females. The importers don't want you breeding them. I had a few and I don't know why I sold them? I may get another male and try to cross it with a canary hen.

Jerry
Hi there mate,

Yes I agree that you possibly could use a canary hen to cross a saffron finch with, us in England and Europe would call this a mule, although a proper exhibition mule is with a a native British finch but I've seen a few foreign finch mules in the past,
IE alaro finch, hooded Siskins, green singing finches etc.

Didn't know if you knew but the majority of mules are inferile and just purely bred for exhibition and singing purposes,

As far as I'm aware of its only been a few Siskin mules that have proved to be fertile but is rare but saying that this is how the red factor canary came about with the use of the black hooded Siskins

You mention about the locals only supplying only cock birds because they didn't want you to breed !!.....it is worth mentioning that this is probably different now because as for a number of years the trapping and import / export of such birds has been banned, same as African and Australian import ban

I have had a few mules in my time, just Siberian Goldfinch/Waterslaggers cross.
A fellow here in Calgary crossed a male green singer with a female goldfinch. Now that was a beautiful bird! Instead of red markings, it had yellow with a black mask.

But Saffron finches are nice and do settle in eventually. Still plenty available here in Canada. Usually they are about $80 Canadian.

Jerry

Posted: **Tue Aug 09, 2016 12:22 pm**

Interesting to know Jerry, nice one

Posted: **Tue Aug 09, 2016 12:23 pm**

Hi Sally,

That's interesting to know that there's no classes in USA for mules, learn something new everyday

Posted: **Wed Aug 10, 2016 2:28 pm**

Here is a link for YouTube.

https://youtu.be/b8pxqdXnwBU

Posted: **Wed Aug 10, 2016 5:45 pm**

Oh ....now that does bring back some memories listening to that cock saffron on YouTube,

Makes me wanna get one or two pairs now

Posted: **Sat Aug 20, 2016 10:02 am**

Thanks everyone for your replies!

I've decided to hold off for now on purchasing a saffron finch, until I do a little more research:)

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