FINCHforum

Until recently I used to see tons of society finches in pet stores, and quite a few varieties of them. Now I see a few brown pied here and there, and even more rarely fawn pied. I put up an ad on Craigslist, and a few other places looking for all brown (self) society finches, no luck.

I called a finch breeder, and she told me that she has them, but not currently for sale. She said that they used to breed like crazy all year, but they have become more and more difficult birds to breed, she used to find herself tossing out eggs to keep them from breeding too much, now they hardly have any chicks. So are our little societies going from very very common to rare?

I would start breeding mine again, but they are birds I bought from Petsmart (usually I get my birds direct from breeders, but I haven't had any luck finding breeders with available societies), they are really adorable, and nice looking societies, but I have this suspicion they aren't pure societies. What do you think? Is not knowing much about the ancestry of your birds a reason not to breed and sell them? Maybe I should give people fair warning that I suspect they may have hybridized at some point?

That is a good idea, maybe I should post some more pics of my societies on here.
A few people that said they used to see a lot more of them have said they've noticed a decline, and prices have been slowly going up for a few years it seems like. It could be just something going on around where I live.

I think that might be happening where your at. Here where I live all the petshops carry societies finches in abundance and i also have 2 trios set-up and the males have been breeding with the females and 1 pair is already sitting on eggs.

A society is a hybrid? Are you saying you think they may have hybridized with a species at petsmart like a spice finch or something like that?

Well, I don't think they are on a decline in population as a whole, BUT SELF societies may be harder to locate than the more common pied. I have actually never seen a true self society. But I know a lady that has a few solid white ones. Those are lovely.

Mannikin_luver wrote:A society is a hybrid? Are you saying you think they may have hybridized with a species at petsmart like a spice finch or something like that?

Yes, and I saw a few that I'm sure are hybrids between spice and society there, they really looked mine but with hints of spice finch markings. Mine I'm not so sure, I don't think they'd be part spice (but maybe?), but maybe silverbill, or white rumped mannikin (which is the wild type ancestor and awfully hard to tell apart from brown selfs anyhow). But I could be wrong, I'll have to just post some pics.