Pair of pied fawns threw off self baby....why and how?

[love4finches]

I have a beautiful pair of fawn pieds and they gave me a self fawn baby. Where did that come from? Will that baby ever have pieds if I put it with a pied fawn or will babies now always be selfs?

[Martie]

All self Societies are actually pied with all the white suppressed through selection by breeders. This is why you occasionally see white blotches on the bellies or around the beaks of selfs. If you check carefully, you might find some of these little white spots on your baby - but it is absolutely possible two fawn pieds to produce a self. It's rare if it is a "perfect" self with no white spots -but possible.

[love4finches]

If I breed this baby with another pied then I will get both pieds and selfs?

[Martie]

It's very hard to say what you might get, but the pied is strong in your self baby, so the young would very likely all be pied - but with less white. Pieds are interesting and when breeding them, it's good to decide what you want to end up with.

If you breed the ones with the most white and keep doing that for successive generations, you will achieve marked whites - and eventually all white birds. If you breed the ones with the least white, you will see less and less white in each generation until you achieve self birds with no white on them. Then, of course, there's the middle of the road - with a goal of achieving 50% white pied birds.

[Martie]

I should also mention that when working with fawn pieds to achieve all-white birds, you need to take care as it is reported that some of these can have eye problems. The all-white Societies bred from fawn pieds look almost exactly like albinos, but they are not. Like albinos, they have red eyes and are pure white, but the inheritance will show which they actually are. Albino is a recessive mutation and needs two copies to express. So - if you breed a white bird with red eyes to a pied society with no albino background and any white young are produced, you know it's an all-white pied fawn.

[love4finches]

Martie,
Thank you for the explanation. The self fawn is quite pretty and I have always loved that color in all my finches. However, I have to admit that the pieds are my absolute favs. Lyn

[Martie]

I, too, love the self fawns - and also the pieds! I am totally smitten! I am working on a line of fawn selfs that are very red in color. Societies are amazing.

[tinysparrow]

Societies are amazing.

I totally agree Martie!

[Anph371]

I am a newbie to the world of finches... I have a pair of Societies and I love them! They are so much fun to watch. My pair have two little babies that are very close to emerging from the nest. I don't know all the colors yet but I believe my cock is chocolate pied and the hen is a lighter brown pied.. The cock is also crested. The two babies are chocolate pied crested. Which I think is adorable... I have a pair of gouldians, Cordon Bleu's, and blue faced parrot finches and I have to say I really love the Societies.. oh, I can't leave out my male Fife Canary.. Good luck with your Societies..