FINCHforum

Hello everyone. My name is Matthew and I am new to this forum and a new Zebra Finch owner. About 4 months ago, I purchased a male/female pair of Zebra Finches and I'm having a hard time identifying the color mutation of the female. (I'll attach a picture of them). At first I thought she was of the white mutation but she isn't pure white. She has some light gray patterning on her tail and black teardrops. Can anyone here help me identify what she is? I would be very appreciative. Thank you.

https://i.imgur.com/FDRxmYq.jpg

The image did not come through, upload it to Imgur.com and then post it here. The description sounds like a chestnut-flanked white.

https://i.imgur.com/DteGVAQ.jpg

Here is the picture of my Zebras. Very new here so sorry for the picture fiasco.

MattM

Hi Mathew, and welcome to the Forum.

Your pretty little girl appears to be a CFW or Chestnut Flanked White, like the bird in the picture below.

https://goo.gl/images/xJDLgR

Indeed, she is a CFW.

Welcome to the forum Matt, I notice we are from the same region.

lovezebs wrote: MattM

Hi Mathew, and welcome to the Forum.

Your pretty little girl appears to be a CFW or Chestnut Flanked White, like the bird in the picture below.

https://goo.gl/images/xJDLgR

Yep. That a spittin' image of my beautiful little Maggie. Thank you so much! They recently had 3 chicks and now I know I have one normal gray like daddy Glenn and 2 CFWs like momma. I haven't quite figured out the sex yet. They all look female but one of the CFWs tries to chatter like only Glenn does so I'm not sure. They're almost 6 weeks old now so maybe it's too early to tell?

MattM hi wish I could upload phtos to show you mine that is exactly identical to yours haha

CFW is sexlinked.... if your male happens to be split to CFW or visually CFW then you will have visual CFW offspring... if not than your hens will be gray and males will be split to CFW (if they/males split to CFW are paired with a non visual CFW hen) you can get visual CFW hens and split to CFW males. Hens can't be split to CFW.

To get visual male and female offspring a hen must be visual CFW and male either split to CFW or visually CFW

http://www.efinch.com/species/cfwzeb.htm

cindy wrote: CFW is sexlinked.... if your male happens to be split to CFW or visually CFW then you will have visual CFW offspring... if not than your hens will be gray and males will be split to CFW (if they/males split to CFW are paired with a non visual CFW hen) you can get visual CFW hens and split to CFW males. Hens can't be split to CFW.

To get visual male and female offspring a hen must be visual CFW and male either split to CFW or visually CFW

http://www.efinch.com/species/cfwzeb.htm

Thank you for the genetics lesson. That's really interesting. Taking all of that into account, it sounds like all 3 of my chicks are female then. The one is definitely a normal gray female and and the other two look exactly like their mother.

Definitely a female CFW, very pretty!