Zebra finches colors

[stargazerwolf]

I am back to owning birds. It has been several years (2011) since I owned zebra finches and now I have 4 girls. So I adopted 3 that are a mother and her daughters, from someone who fosters birds, but these were from a friend of theirs. Then I saw a lonely girl at Petsmart and had to save her (she was flying up and down over and over again like she was going stir crazy from being alone) So of the first 3 it looks like 2 are normal greys and one is a fawn, but one of the normal grey girls has some chest striping like a male though not as much and I've never seen that before (and one had a tiny bit of black like where the bar would be at the bottom). The one I rescued from Petsmart is a pied normal grey (I believe). I hope to possibly breed the pied girl when I can find a male from somewhere other than Petsmart (to hope they are unrelated). I recently bought a large acrylic cage that I will be setting up at my grooming salon, I plan to put the mother and her daughters in that and then keep the pied girl and her mate in the other cage I have. So my questions are, why would a normal grey girl have chest striping? Could she have some other mutation in her? Also the acrylic cage I just bought is 24" x 24" x 28" tall. I have always kept zebbies in those small "flight" cages that are longer than tall, but when I looked more in to housing them read something about having 3 sq ft for each pair and now I worry this expensive acrylic cage I bought isn't going to be big enough for all my birds. What do you think?

[Barbara]

stargazerwolf I don't have zebras ,but am thinking of geting some only I want just females,no breeding and was reading that females get along better then males ,I know these little zebras can be very unpredictable with there little personalities.I really can't answer your question I' m sure someone here will have some good knowledge, I wanted to ask you I thought any baring on the chest was a male.Am I wrong? Your birds look so happy and cute all together.

[lem2bert]

stargazerwolf

I am not familiar with zebra finches, from what you said you have 4 and you want to find one more ? It sounds like your acrylic cage measurements would be ok for that many. I am not sure if you may have problems if they are mixed sex and want to breed. Someone with more experience may be able to help you with that. I sure would figure out a way to use that acrylic cage !!