Aussie Finch Forum

Look forward to seeing pics of the birds that started this thread. And worth trying to to establish them as a seperate mutation, even if Cronc didn't have sucesses as there is no way of knowing if the cause of the colour is the same or different. Agree with Orix re colour feeding 100% And while some birds will get colour on their chin/chest from messy eating of coloured foods this is too patchy for that methinks.
LML

Yes, that is exactly what I mean. The stars looked just like that, perhaps just a tad more intense. You can see why I was puzzled when I first saw them, they do look good though.

I have Stars just like these with red suffusion on the chest plus extra bright red on the throat & they are not colour food induced. They are selectively bred for enhanced extra red intensity & area on the head & these birds are an occasional side-effect of the selective red enhancement. Haven't yet worked out the mode of inheritence (if there is one for this trait) myself yet either. I do find it very attractive though & retain a good proportion of these birds as breeders. I saw some Stars in a local petshop years ago with this evident on cocks & hens & I've kicked myself ever since for not buying them.

I don't know if in the evolution of the genus Neochmia where stars and crimsons fit but given that most of the species don't have large areas covered in red and none of the juveniles do that some form of selection has favoured the mainly crimson, crimson finch. If this can happen once I reckon aviculturists can do it again and a lot faster than nature if they put their mind to it but please don't sell off the culls to the general public to pollute the normal gene pool. I'd like to see both normal and red Stars but not a hybrid as I don't think it will be a simple inheritance like the yellow-faced mutation and would be as difficult to get rid of as to create.

They are not hybrids. They are 100% Star Finch.

G'day Tiaris,would love to see some pics of your stars,i know you don't like putting up pics but do what i did,send them to Dianne and she will put them up for you. I don't think Greg was calling them hybrids,he meant don't pollute the normal star with them. Cheers Craig

Gotcha Craig. Not much chance of that as mine are only in fawns & cinnamon fawns (Yellow-bodied). I'll send some pics through in a couple of days as I'm just home from a camping weekend to feed birds atm. Cheers.