Aussie Finch Forum

I have been trying to breed red headed and red chested zebs.

I have been going since Oct 2014 and have been doing the cycle ....breed, select, cull, repair breed select cull.

For every 10 I cull I get 1 that is a keeper but if it was easy I guess it wouldn't be as fun.

I have been putting them with fawn charcoals and black fronteds to improve the red. The black cheek black fronted gets the best result even with a normal grey back.

I lost a chick in a aviary move and it was looking very red on the back and head (even at 2 weeks of age) so there is some hope.

The cock with the red head has a mixed chest with more black than I would like but he is now paired to a black faced black fronted hen that had a strong father with a bright red chest so the better results may be yet to come.

elferoz777 wrote:I have been trying to breed red headed and red chested zebs.

I have been going since Oct 2014 and have been doing the cycle ....breed, select, cull, repair breed select cull.

For every 10 I cull I get 1 that is a keeper but if it was easy I guess it wouldn't be as fun.

I have been putting them with fawn charcoals and black fronteds to improve the red. The black cheek black fronted gets the best result even with a normal grey back.

I lost a chick in a aviary move and it was looking very red on the back and head (even at 2 weeks of age) so there is some hope.

The cock with the red head has a mixed chest with more black than I would like but he is now paired to a black faced black fronted hen that had a strong father with a bright red chest so the better results may be yet to come.

Glad to see you are so dedicated to breed to what you want,i'm sure you will get there with the results you already have in 7 months.In another 7 months i reckon you will be selling close to red head/bodied zebs. Well done Craig

It's good to set yourself a challenge and go for it, congratulations on your progress so far.
LML

Nice, you seem to be a bit further along then me, mine don't have that much head colour yet, I have been breeding to charcoal also but all I find it changes is loss of tail spots hasn't as yet improved chest and head colour for me, I seemed te breed a lot of grey cocks this year that are ok but not super, there is always next season.

I've just started collecting whatever funky zebs I see at bird sales etc. Some really cool variations out there.
Are the reds like you are breeding available in australia as yet or are you forging a path?

escapin wrote:I've just started collecting whatever funky zebs I see at bird sales etc. Some really cool variations out there.
Are the reds like you are breeding available in australia as yet or are you forging a path?

I am by no means fdrging the path with these ones.

The reds are out there but in varying degrees of quality. Not aware of many who are giving them a go but I am certain there would be a few people out there.

I dont believe they are as well established as they once were and have heard many a story about how they nearly vanished ect ect.

I just like them and think the birds I have are in a good position to eventually deliver a decent line of red birds. Thats my goal, full red fed and chested birds then a combo then expand from there.

good luck with them. I've never seen them in the flesh so there cant be too many about, although I guess most of the good birds never get advertised for sale as theyre snapped up by friends etc.

Nice Zebs

Some pics of my best so far, ( i think you've seen them before elferoz ), i have a promising young bird at the moment just waiting for it to colour up.
I had a slight issue two seasons back where i started spitting out weird colours, blues, blackfronts and even a cfw female, came to conclusion line was getting a little to related, so new hens last year has fixed issue i hope, thats the problem with aviary breeding lol
cheers Norse

Thats a nice bird.

see how we go this year.

We might be able to mix our birds at the end of the season to broaden the genetic mix.