Finchy wrote:I'm sure that Craig is a fine genetic specimen
....aaah, but have you met him?
Just to bring this amusing post back around to topic, I think that the naming 'rights' go to the person with a bird for sale. This is not the ideal system, but it is what happens.
Good birdkeepers should know the genetic makeup of their birds, but the names do get very confusing, especially where there are several mutations at play. Not all birdkeepers aspire to clarity.
If someone has established a new mutation on their own, they have the birds for sale and can call them what they please. If several people have the same mutation which is not established, it's first-in best-dressed.
A similar principle determines price: new things are desirable and people sometimes pay stupid money to be the first kid on their block with a stronzo-back. The person with the bird for sale determines the price. The buyer then decides to buy or not. Funnily enough, when people have good results with less-common finches (I'm talking nonmutations, here) they often have great difficulty getting the 'list price' for their progeny. A forum member recently had numerous pairs of a less-established susbspecies of an Australian grassfinch for sale, initially at the asking price of $600, less than they are on the QFS price list. After some months, the price was reduced to about half of the QFS recommended price.
Ironically, the person whose breeding was a failure is likely to recover the price the paid for their adult pair if they can find a single person who wants a pair. The person who produces more than ten pairs of a finch worth more than about three hundred dollars per pair will struggle to sell them all at any price, and may find themselves undercutting the value of the bird they have done so well with to try to move them.
Good thing we're not in it for the money....
Avid amateur aviculturalist; I keep mostly australian and foreign finches.
The art is long, the life so short; the critical moment is fleeting and experience can be misleading, crisis is difficult....... (Hippocrates)