Mules and hybrids

[Stuart whiting]

Hi there ,

I've just been advised to start a thread about the breeding of such birds,

I'm just curious to see if there's many people that have bred many mules or hybrids,

The breeding and exhibition scene of high class birds is very big here in England and also Europe,

I'll try to explaine here as easy as I can,

Canary x canary = ( cross breed ) although we still call em hybrids, it's a slang thing

Finch x different specie of finch = hybrid

Canary x finch = mule

However all finch x bullfinch hen are hybrids and even a canary x bullfinch hen is still classified as a hybrid, this bit here seems confusing but the reason why the canary x bullfinch is called a hybrid and not a mule is because of the following:

Basically it's never ever been know in the bird world for a cock bullfinch to tread and fertilise any other type of finch or canary, the courtship behaviour of a cock bullfinch is a lot slower and the timing is wrong compared to other birds,
Cock bullfinches simply can't fertilise anything other than its own type,

Only the hen can be used to produce any hybrids,

Goldfinches, greenfinches, chaffinches, brambles, linnets, twites, siskins and redpolls can all produce mules and hybrids from both sexes.

The mules and hybrids of over a 30 year period that I've personally bred and exhibited are as follows :

Goldie mules, linnet mules, twite mules, Siskin mules, redpoll mules and greenie mules,
The birds used to produce the large type exhibition birds where all quality champion bred Norwich canaries, a few miniature mules where also bred aswell using small Irish fancy and Fife canaries

Hybrids are : Goldie-redpoll, Goldie-Siskin, Goldie-linnet, Goldie-greenfinch, Goldie-bullfinch,

Linnet-redpoll, linnet-Siskin, linnet-greenfinch, linnet-bullfinch,

Redpoll-Siskin, redpoll-greenfinch,

Siskin-greenfinch, greenfinch-bullfinch, canary-bullfinch,

chaffinch-greenfinch, chaffinch-bramble,

The bullfinch and chaffinch hybrids are without a doubt the hardest of all hybrids to breed,

Of all the hybrids that I've bred in this time the only one that I simply could not breed after many close attempts was the redpoll-bullfinch,

A few redpoll-bullies have been bred here in England but are now increasingly very rare and pricey
Average redpoll bullies would fetch £400 - £600 a lot of money for a bird that won't ever breed again,

The majority of quality mules and hybrids are purely bred for colour, song and exhibition purposes,

Most mules are surprisingly very hardy and can withstand very cold conditions providing they are not kept in any drafty and damp areas,

Also a lot of mules can live to a very good age, some have gone well over 15 years or more.

When we exhibit our mules it is often best to use carraphil red colour food which is basically a powder form which is added to the drinking water at the correct dosage when the birds moult,

When a bird moults this colour food is pushed through the quills of the feathers and is how the colour is attained,

However it's not necessary to colour feed any canaries, mules or hybrids if one is not interested in exhibiting as a lot of people enjoy keeping mules just purely for the song and rightly so as the song is often a Loverly sound from the birds,

If anyone is interested I can also write at a later stage about the art of cage breeding mules

I don't really specilise in the mules and hybrids now as my main aim is concentrating on quality zebras along with a few other foreign finches but I'd definitely Be interested to know if others are interested and have bred any such birds

[cindy]

Stuart, we see hybrids between different finch species from time to time... we even had a vendor years ago trying to sell star/owl, owl zebras as rare for a ridiculous amount of money... some of the breeders got on him for that!!!

Do have a red siskin question for you... I do not raise thes but others here in the states do. I was asked by someone why the head of the red siskin (1 to 2 yrs old) turned all white. Consulted some of the breeder of siskins that are keeping the lines pure.... they had not seen this before but one thought possibly their was a hybrid factor in the birds background....another though was diet/metabolism.

Your thoughts on it possibly being a hybrid, have you seen this before?

[Stuart whiting]

cindy

Very difficult to say cindy, it could possibly be the fact they are lacking something in their diet,

There are a few breeders here in England that have got these aswell although I've never heard of this, I've personally never had em ,

If we rewind to a few years back it was the hooded red siskin that produced the very first original new colour / red factor canaries,

Now when these where first bred they were technically a hybrid but the difference here is that they remained fertile which you don't normally get in the hybrid world,

Over time these cross pairings became an established breed which all originate from the new colour / red factor canaries that we have today,

Incidentally the British / European Siskin that we've bred with all varieties of canaries for many years to create Loverly Siskin mules have been known to also produce the odd fertile bird that where then paired back to Siskins,

Bit like the society finches that were first created back in Japan the White rumped Munia x Indian silverbill = society finch ( bengalese ) and proved to be fertile.

If you here of any more info about the lack of melamisum as regards to the red Siskins I'd be interested to here

[cindy]

Thank you Stuart... gathering opinions/info... anything note worthy will pm you

[Stuart whiting]

cindy

Ok no problem, many thanks

[Maleficum]

Very interesting!
Here in Sweden mules (and hybrids) are rare, I think mostly it is because many if the spices used to produce the mules are not legal to have as cage birds. All native European birds are illegal to keep here.

[haroun]

Oh man are you trying to kill me, cantstop imagine those nice hybrids&mulets and their beautifull songs. Those are mulets that i have seen goldfinsh, redsiskins, greensinger. honestly have never breed for mulets. I have seen a mulet domst sparrow x canary ' put link asap.
Cindy the lack of colors is also observed on linets, cok lost the pink colors.
Stu thank u for this topic

[Stuart whiting]

Very interesting!
Here in Sweden mules (and hybrids) are rare, I think mostly it is because many if the spices used to produce the mules are not legal to have as cage birds. All native European birds are illegal to keep here.

Mmm....that's also very interesting fella, that's something that I didn't know and definitely worth remembering

[Stuart whiting]

Oh man are you trying to kill me, cantstop imagine those nice hybrids&mulets and their beautifull songs. Those are mulets that i have seen goldfinsh, redsiskins, greensinger. honestly have never breed for mulets. I have seen a mulet domst sparrow x canary ' put link asap.
Cindy the lack of colors is also observed on linets, cok lost the pink colors.
Stu thank u for this topic

Hi mate,

The lack of colour in Linnets is actually completely different to the red Siskins

Let me explaine about the Linnets,

Basically I've observed linnets in the wild for many years and all of the cock birds gain a Loverly deep pink flush of colour down the front of there chest aswell as having red on the cap of the birds head, hens never have the colour and the cock birds normally only have the colour during the breeding season, after the birds have moulted the birds will remain in their winter plumage,

It took me many many years to fathom this out of observing flocks of linnets quite close to where I live on the Thames estuary salt marshes where I regularly bass fish.

The birds would feed on the ground all along the top of the high tide line ( incidentally linnets are well known for salt marshes ) the birds would often dig and probe around with there bills around the roots of heather, now if one has ever looked at the roots of heather they are very dark red / purple, this could be coincidence but baring in mind that the majority of linnets in England breed on waistband, marshland and also heathland, all three if these locations normally have heather somewhere

Again this could be just coincidence but more importantly the birds probably gained the pink / red breeding colouration by consuming various minerals out of the ground and where better of a place than salt marshes

Over the years many bird keepers world wide have tried in vain to obtain the colouration in cock linnets in captivity but this has simply never been achieved, the main reason being is that it's often to difficult to match every single item of food source and minerals that birds can easily find in the wild.

There is only one way of putting colour into them and that is by administering caraphill red colour agent which is a powder that is put into the birds water when the birds moult,

However the colour is never ever the same as what the birds obtain in the wild and trying to colour the birds with caraphill is a very poor substitute for colour.

Incidentally a few years back I specifically specialised in the breeding of linnet mules with waterslager canaries for 10 years and these were bred purely for the song where my young mules would be trained by listening to cock linnet cd's in a room with absolutely no other birds around them,

At times there used to be as many as 15-20 cock birds in one room all in there own separate mule cages, the cages that I often used were very typical fancy carved wooden East London back cages that we all used to hang up on the walls of some of the East London pub walls for singing competitions on a Sunday afternoon
Sadly these good old days are now long gone

All of the hens I actually used to give away as pets as hen linnet mules are not really that worthy of anything as one must remember that about 99% of mules are inferile

[jonvill]

Hi Stuart,
I have goldfinch mules.
I had a female goldfinch caged with a male canary. They got along very well and when breeding season came along, I added a nest to the cage and she built her nest and squatted for the canary. As a result, I have four male mules as shown in my signature.
John

[Tom lawless]

Here in Ireland mule breeding is quite common I prefer the Gouldian finch myself but have seen lots of mules for sale

[Stuart whiting]

Hi Stuart,
I have goldfinch mules.
I had a female goldfinch caged with a male canary. They got along very well and when breeding season came along, I added a nest to the cage and she built her nest and squatted for the canary. As a result, I have four male mules as shown in my signature.
John

Hi mate,

Very well done to you for the breeding of 4 Goldie mules, personally I think that any British, native, European mule or hybrid is an achievement in itself,

Yes quite regularly the pairing can be the opposite way around by using the Goldie hen as apossed to the canary hen,

The bird pictured in your avarta pic doesn't appear to be any of the Goldie mules, the bird pictured is a straight goldfinch and thought it may perhaps be your hen Goldie

[Stuart whiting]

Here in Ireland mule breeding is quite common I prefer the Gouldian finch myself but have seen lots of mules for sale

Yes mate, there is an awful lot of high quality mules in Ireland, I know many contacts in Ireland and they are also very big on the exhibition scene with em along with their native hard bills ( finches )

[jonvill]

The bird in my avatar is a photo of a wild goldfinch.
My signature (below the post) has the heads of the birds I keep.

[Stuart whiting]

The bird in my avatar is a photo of a wild goldfinch.
My signature (below the post) has the heads of the birds I keep.

Oh yea your signature, just realised, I thought you ment the pic doh.....lols

Are these bred from British / European goldfinch or from northern / Siberian