Aussie Finch Forum

I haVe been line breeding two types of red zeb.

The red balck faced variety which I stupidly mixed charcoal into and

The red chested. Ive git a good line goibg but the red chested are harder to keep and breed from.

The hens from each pairing differ with the red chested having cheek patches and those stemming from the red bodied not.

What will happen in crossing these two lines? A full red bird woukd be great but im thinking its not that simple.

Also what are the hens without cheek patches? Are they genetically red bodied? They look like straight fawns but stem from red bodied males and red cheeked hens.

Jealous. Want to achieve what you have in pic 3. Have only got normal looking fawn charcols in both sexs by crossing my reds with the charcols. Congrats. I am also finding that I get hens that look like both the types you have in the middle pic. They should be splits. I do not know, but sumise, that this works similar to the Aussie yellow Gouldian, or Danish pied budgie. Where some splits show that they are split (e.g. cheek patches or white/yellow patches and some do not) Am at the time to play some more with my ideas stage here too.
LML

Is the 1st one dead or just squinting for the flash?

Not all Red Breasted Hens have Cheek patches thou, it will vary. A Red Black Bodied bird does look good a guy here in Victoria has some and I reckon I have a cock here and a Hen that shows no cheek patch that are most likely Red Black Bodied Zebs.
The red on the cock extends down towards the legs. Still to do full Reds Bodied Zebs I reckon Charcoal are the way to go. My opinon.
Just starting to get Red Carabels going at the moment.

Tiaris wrote: ↑20 May 2017, 19:53 Is the 1st one dead or just squinting for the flash?

He is alive he just does that when I grab him. I moved him into another flight after taking this pic

Just a thought.

My Red birds were a combination of mutations ( fawn Isabel charcoal red possible black faced ).

The hens that displayed marking with Isabel had no tear drop with a cheek patch??

Does a hen with fawn charcoal red markings (not visual Isabel) have teardrops and no cheek patch??

Steve I would try mixing some of the 2 different lines together. Remember to cull heavily the average birds and hope for the best.

Heavy cull happening this fri.

What i want is the head and back of photo one with the front of photo three in one bird.

Getting closer

Having bought my first reds of Elf I am a year or two behind you.

There's obviously a science to pairing the correct birds but seems like a lot of luck. I'm getting about 1 in every 10 birds that has nice colouring. The rest show red signs or are just plain looking.

I've got 4 nests now from all my best birds that I put together 4-5 weeks ago. Fingers crossed I get some good ones

In my lot a high percentage of the young look normal, accept they tend to have a lightly bigger breast bar with more red in it. (cocks and hens)
LML

I agree FB

I hVe found some have trouble flying sometimes.

The red bodied ones (pic3)i find breed better birds and they are different