My New Purple Grenadiers

[Sally]

I just received this pair in a shipment late this afternoon. Poor things, I don't even let them get settled before I am snapping photos! I am very pleased with them, they appear healthy and fit, and they are quite calm, as you can see from how they sat for photos.

Now to wait for the hen to come into breeding condition, and try for babies!

[cindy]

Congratulations Sally!! They are very pretty, I hope they give you lots of little ones. They are indeed special finches!!

[G8love4finches]

What a beautiful pair!...Good luck with the breeding!

[lovemyfinch]

I am just amazed by the colouring on the males every time I see them. Georgeous Sally

[L in Ontario]

They are beautiful - good luck with them.

[finchmix22]

Wow, those are so pretty! Congrats.

[waxbill lover]

Sally, I am SO envious of you... Gorgeous birds!

Up here in Canada these seem to go for about $600 a pair. I was only ever able to locate 1 pair in Alberta, and the lady had them shipped in from somewhere in Ontario... too rich for my blood, not to mention I feel like these birds should be with a serious breeder who has the space, time, and mealworms available to propogate them to a stable number in captivity.

Good luck with them, I look forward to hearing about some babies!

[annague]

Scrumptious pair!

I can't wait to hear how they do when you try to breed....

[CandoAviary]

Lovely they are. I am sure they will settle in in no time. Hopefully they will make a good breeding pair. Any chicks from your others?

[Sally]

No luck with the others, Candace. I have the one little female I got from the one pair, they stopped feeding the other two babies they had, and since then, I've had tosslings, DIS, just a string of disappointments.

This one little girl is destined to go to Atlanta and live with Misty, who has a little boy just a few months older than this one--an arranged marriage! Hopefully, they will be the start of a new dynasty.

[Domenic]

Very beautiful pg's in great shape. How many do you have now?

[CandoAviary]

Sorry for all the dissapointments with your clutch but that one hen is gorgeous. I can't wait to hear how the "arranged marriage" works out. That's awesome that you both have each other to swap lines with

[Sally]

I now have three pairs, plus one extra male, plus this young hen. I don't want to pair her with my extra male, he is unknown age and wasn't in good shape when I got him. So I don't want to waste her with him. If she will bond with Misty's male, they would both come into breeding age at the same time, and we should get quite a few years out of them. Both are from unrelated bloodlines, both are NFSS closed banded, and so this should be a good match. I recently lost my fourth female, unbanded, so no telling how old she really was. There is also a guy in California who got some babies last year, I was going to swap some with him if my other two babies had survived. Maybe next year. These are proving to be more difficult than I had hoped, after my initial success.

I would love to see this species become more readily available. They are gorgeous birds, the only aggression I see is the male gets a little rough with the hen when in breeding condition. This young hen stayed with her parents for a long time, they gave her no trouble, she would even join them in the nest after she was weaned. The male has a lovely song, though mine don't sing very often--it always catches me off-guard when I hear them, wondering who is that? They also have a staccato chatter scolding call that reminds me of what the Red-cheeked CBs do when they are guarding eggs or babies.

If I could have only one genus of finches, it would be this one. With the Grens, BCCBs, RCCBs, you get beautiful color and lovely song. Someone recently advertised some finches on eBay, and the male CB looked like a gorgeous Blue-breasted. But the photo was 'borrowed' from someone else, and when this person sent me a photo of the real bird, it was a BCCB. That's just one reason I don't like it when people don't post pictures of their own birds, it can be very misleading.

Of course, I can't restrict myself to just one genus!

[monotwine]

Your birds all look fabulous. How I wish I could find my boy a hen of the right ssp. Never see them available here.
I'm with you on the favourite genus though. Violet ears and the Blue caps are where I am going to try concentrate on next year. I WILL get babies. Gosh please, I can only hope!

Best luck for the next breeding season with your pairs.

[annague]

I have to admit I am getting more and more interested in the PG's from all the discussion and pictures. I have been a little put off by stories of aggressiveness because all the finches I have now are "community" finches; but it sounds like it varies from bird to bird and on the plus side the PG's are just beautiful, the male sings and they are relatively rare so a productive pair would bring more of this species into availability for the general public.

Keeping my fingers crossed for more success from your and Misty's pairs, Sally.