hybrids in captivity?

[BronzewingBilly]

Hi all. I'm from England and whilst I don't breed "natives", in the UK we have a large scene breeding hybrids of natives ( eg bullfinch x greenfinch, bullfinch x goldfinch etc) or mules ( native x canary eg goldfinch x canary). as far as I know we don't really have this when applied to "foreign" finches.

looking online there are websites such as avibase and finchinfo which make all sorts of claims as too finch hybrids. for example avibase has java sparrow x house sparrow https://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/species.jsp ... d=FD7B205C and finch info states the java sparrow has hybridised with the cut throat finch. http://www.finchinfo.com/birds/finches/ ... parrow.php

I don't believe either of these claims, i'm not an expert and have never tried to hybridise but i never seem to see pictures of these claims and surely the java and cut throat are too far removed from each other? let alone the house sparrow.

Im curious if anyone has any knowledge about where these claims come from?

im sure there are distant species which can hybridise ( such as the red siskin and canary) and im not just talking about fertile hybrids. but java and house sparrow seems so distant to me i just dont buy it?

And im not just talking about javas as finchinfo has many species which have "reportedly" hybridised such as silverbill and canary, red aavadat, waxbill and parrot finch.
http://www.finchinfo.com/birds/finches/ ... erbill.php

I do have a personal theory that many species with multiple colour mutations have actually arisen from the hybridisation of two closely related subspecies/species. (eg chickens being from red jungle fowl with a tad of something else or zebs having a tad of timor in them, bengalese having a tad of some other lonchura (so called black brown euro society finches) which then opens up so to speak the genetic code resulting in more mutations.

[Craig52]

In Australia there is many accidental hybrids in aviaries of mixed collections mainly native finches but foreign finches finches aswell.
The main ones are parrot finches, close related Australian finches, strawberries and orange breasts and cordons and other African waxbills but all accidental.
The siskin family can also cross breed and some do deliberately do that here.
A hybrid is never classed as a natural mutation but there is a of European breeders deliberately crossing finches just for colour inhansment. But in saying that most are infertile and just used as display.

[finchbreeder]

The only hybrids I have personally ever owned were accidents in my early years of bird keeping.
These were
The well known Goldfinch x Canary.
The lesser known Java x Bengalese.
Both were infertile, the Goldfinch x cock was an excellent singer.
The Java x hen laid one tiny egg in her long lifetime.
Hybidising is in almost all cases, a waste of genetic material that would be better spent increasing their own kind.
Zebras, and Bengalese, being monochromatic are capable, by breeding Zebra to Zebra and Bengalese to Bengalese of producing many mixtures of monchromatic colourations. It all depends on what combinations of light and dark genes etc are in the parent birds, and some will show quickly because they are dominant, while some may take generations to show up. This I believe is the source of the Black/Brown Bengalese. I have never crossed my Bengalese with anything else (bar that one early accident - after which they were kept clear of any risk birds) and have bred some very dark birds and some mixed shade birds.

[Howard's]

I’ve been around the bird show scene for some years and as you say mainly accidental hybridising in a mixed collection but I have seen quite a few mainly with Zebras I’ve seen them with Longtail, Plumhead , Bangelese and Parsons some very attractive hybrids but as finchbreeder says most infertile .

[Craig52]

The European countries are pretty much shooting themselves in the foot hybridisation finches on purpose.
Here in Australia with import export bans now for decades for finches breeding foreign finches in particular need to keep them pure as possible as we can't get new wild type blood.
Australian finches are the same as trapping wild finches has been totally banned in Australia for decades aswell which is same as keeping aviary bred finches as pure as possible. But in saying that hybrids do occur at times in mixed species collections but not deliberately bred on purpose which is frowned apon by most Australian breeders and in some cases illegal in some states.

[BronzewingBilly]

The only hybrids I have personally ever owned were accidents in my early years of bird keeping.
These were
The well known Goldfinch x Canary.
The lesser known Java x Bengalese.
Both were infertile, the Goldfinch x cock was an excellent singer.
The Java x hen laid one tiny egg in her long lifetime.
Hybidising is in almost all cases, a waste of genetic material that would be better spent increasing their own kind.
Zebras, and Bengalese, being monochromatic are capable, by breeding Zebra to Zebra and Bengalese to Bengalese of producing many mixtures of monchromatic colourations. It all depends on what combinations of light and dark genes etc are in the parent birds, and some will show quickly because they are dominant, while some may take generations to show up. This I believe is the source of the Black/Brown Bengalese. I have never crossed my Bengalese with anything else (bar that one early accident - after which they were kept clear of any risk birds) and have bred some very dark birds and some mixed shade birds.

all the info ive ever heard or read about euro bengalese / black brown society states they came from bengalese hybridshttp://www.nbfa.co.uk/page10.html
http://www.zebrafinch.com/SocietyFinch/Black_Brown.html

although given that for many years and still people say that bengalese are hybrids of silverbills and whatever else perhaps not?

unusual that you got a hen hybrids, the vast majority of mules/hybrids are males due to haldanes law. i wonder if thats due to them being slightly more related or just random lucky chance?

we also have many hybrids between siberian goldfinch and british goldfinch resulting in many colour varities. same with the siberian bullfinch and british bullfinch which has led to all sorts of pastels and yellows etc. although most people try to keep them seperate.

as far as im aware most people also believe a few colour mutations in linnet and redpoll have been "transferred " over by hybridisation although the vast majority of all hybrids are of course infertile.

i dont know much about zebra genetics, i had assumed that the colours were made up of a pigment being expressed more or less than the wild type but wasnt sure if this was due to duplication or removal of pigment gene or if it was due to increase or decrease in expression of that pigment.

from my own experince breeding golden pheasant whilst some genes can randomly mutate leading to colour mutations eg red caratinoid having a mutation leading to yellow golden pheasants the likely hood of this is very very rare and most mutations are from hybridising goldens to lady amherst creating fertile hybroids which are then bred back to goldens resulting in mutations. either due to new genes being inputted or due to the mismatch in new combined dna length which overtime leads to an increased likelyhood of gene mutations during breeding and subsequent gene recombination meaning "gaps" in the dna are "plugged" with nucleotides.


so form your experience have you ever heard of a java x cut throat etc or silver bill x waxbill? im just curious why websites publish these?

[BronzewingBilly]

The European countries are pretty much shooting themselves in the foot hybridisation finches on purpose.
Here in Australia with import export bans now for decades for finches breeding foreign finches in particular need to keep them pure as possible as we can't get new wild type blood.
Australian finches are the same as trapping wild finches has been totally banned in Australia for decades aswell which is same as keeping aviary bred finches as pure as possible. But in saying that hybrids do occur at times in mixed species collections but not deliberately bred on purpose which is frowned apon by most Australian breeders and in some cases illegal in some states.

yeah ive never really understood it myself either. although it has been done for hundreds of years and trapping british birds has been illegal since the 50's. some hybrids look interesting but i dont quite see the appeal of a bird you can never breed from. the majority of people here never try to breed their hybrids or mules and any that are fertile have been found by accident after keeping spare birds in a cage and accidents happening.

most of the breeding seems to be for the show scene to show how unusual or rare something is, i met a guy at stafford bird show who had been trying the same hybrid for 40 years and over 600 clear/infertile eggs before he got one to hatch, which seems madness to me. but it was a show winner just due to its rarity. does seem a massive waste although i will say most mule and hybrid breeders here tend to do one clutch of mules and one clutch of pure breds or one season of each, so they dont end up with completely dead lines.

[finchbreeder]

My Bengos were towards the brownish side of the brown/black, and my "grays" may well have been dilutes rather than "grays"
Some colours are very similar at there extremes.
After 40yrs I can say what many people object too - that most mutations arise from inbreeding.
This always causes objections due to human perception.
But humans for Centuries married someone from the next village - frequently the same next village that their parent married someone from. So 2nd and 3rd cousin marriages have long been normal in both the human and bird worlds.
Because the birds take the nearest available mate that is appealing, and it is quite often a cousin or half sib.
What the objectors keep forgetting is that strong genes will always survive and weak ones will eventually die out.
So that strong gene that has linked with an odd gene will make for a mutation within the species.
My Zebs and King quail are all bred on that principal. Bengos were too in the day. Breed cousin to cousin. Look for weakness and outcross immediately.
You would be surprised at some of the shades within my monochromatic lines.

Never come accross those hybrids you mentioned - but I don't get to see a lot being in Country West Aust. Did see a Zeb x Double Bar many years back. Not as attractive as either of the parents and definately a waste of Double Bar genes. Though it was like most hybrids in Aust. an accident.