Aussie Finch Forum

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The truth about the Cinnamon mutation in Gouldian finches & where it originated.

Hello my name is Tony, and along with a close friend Flavio, would like to set the record straight, about the cinnamon mutation.
In 2003, I placed a large order for birds with a Gouldian Breeder in New South Wales. His name is Joe.
Joe agreed to supply me with a large consignment of birds worth $2500. This consisted of, blue splits, dilutes, and Australian yellows.
Whilst Flavio & I where at Melbourne Airport to collect the birds,I forgot to mention the Australian dilutes and Australian yellow were all split to blue,we bumped into someone else, who was also there to collect birds for himself. We started having a conversation about our bird consignments. I told the gentleman, that our birds had come from Joe in N.S.W.
He mentioned to us that these birds had not only come from Joe, but quite possibly from his mate Alan. I asked him who this Alan guy was, and he told us he was a friend of Joe’s, and he would often help him fill large bird orders.
He went onto say that he’d purchased birds from Alan previously, and he also said heard that there was something in Alan’s birds. I didn’t ponder over this.
So we took our birds home, and divided them between ourselves.
We mixed the new birds in with our existing flocks, and breed blues, normal blue splits, pastels & silvers.
There seemed no sign of any strange colour in any of the juveniles breed, as the guy from the airport had mentioned, so I assumed maybe we hadn’t received any of Alan’s in the end.
As it turn out, I had to ring Joe a number of month later.
So I asked for Alan’s number and called him. We had a lengthy discussion about his birds. He began to tell me about these Gouldian’s he had, that are bad batch of Australian dilutes. He (Alan) told me he had tried to sell these birds, but nobody would buy them. Then lowered his price further, and still he couldn’t sell them. He decided to hold onto them, and released them into large communal aviary with other blue bodied birds. Overtime they hybridized to produce a blue bodied cinnamon mutation, however he couldn’t keep them alive. Alan suspected that some of the birds he’d sold to us, may be carrying this cinnamon gene.
The following day I spoke to Flavio about the conversation I’d had with Alan, and he suspected that if the bird’s we’d purchased were carrying the cinnamon gene, then it must be sex linked because none of the juveniles looked to have any unusual colouring.
We decided to keep as many of juveniles breed from these birds as possible between ourselves, in the hope of producing a possible new mutation.
Flavio went on and sold some green bodied split blues to a friend of his, and didn’t think anything of it. At the end of the following breeding season, his friend rang him and said he had some strangely coloured birds that he wanted Flavio to look at.
When he went over to his mates place, he looked at the birds and Flavio told his friend that he couldn’t sell them until they’d work out what they were. He also told his mate not to put “all his eggs in one basket”. Flavio took some of these birds from his mate, and amongst themselves they started to breed this mutation and splits.
The original parents, that breed the young ones,that he sold to his mate,died out.

I can confirm ,I spoke to Alan ,prior to the birds being sent to Tony .
And that the article written by Tony is true and correct .

Yes that is the truth cheers flavio

Oh okay that makes sense..so further breeding is needed to be sure...nice one Tony

Well said Tony and Flavio. It seems they maybe a side mutation of the Australian Dilute back if that is what Alan thought he had in the beginning.

Interesting reading. Thanks Mr T.
LML

The birds we got craig 52 were in separate boxes these birds were split blue in one box and dilutes and Australian yellow in another box i believe there sex link mutation it has taken close to 10 years to establish this bird and they do change with the blue gene in them colour wise, over my 40 years i have breed all the Gouldians Mutations and this bird to me is a form of a cinnamon blue mutation i will have the pure form in a few years it will take a wile to get the blue gene out of them. cheers flavio

Very interesting read Mr Tino. The origins of mutations is always interesting, thanks for the post.

Thanks Flav for the reply. The sexlinked mutation is the hardest to reproduce quickly. All the very best for future breeding of this mutation. Craig

I first meet Flavio at the mornington bird sale about 12 years ago,and brought some birds off him later that year,he introduced me to tony and friendship was formed ,we went to bird sales ,rang each other all the time,if someone sneezed the other two caught a cold,you get the picture,in the 2010 - 2011 season i purchased a split blue cock from flavio and it threw an unusual coloured bird i asked flav to take a look after seeing the bird he said dont sell that bird there is something in it,so i kept the bird,it died later that year but the parents bred more of this colour ,i was on the way.Not knowing what these birds were we started asking around to see if anybody knew,tony was adamant that the birds could not be sold until they were identified,i would take photos on my phone and show people at bird sales to find out if anyone knew what they were. In the third or forth year flav organised David White to have a look but he couldn't positively identify it,Matt from WA came over we went to tonys ,flavs and my place ,he saw the bird and we talked about for half hour or so, at no time over these past 4 to 5 years was Alans named mentioned,not once,either was a breeding program for his birds,now if you had a program to breed his birds because they might be caring cinnamon surly the penny would have dropped,at this time i gave flav some cinn birds to breed so that if something happened i had back up and vice versa,flav had never bred a cinnamon in his flock ,all the cinnamons came from my birds at that stage,it was established that the bird was sex linked,i bred birds that had a brown bib ,more proof that the bird was cinnamon,tony was offered birds but rejected this offer,up until feb of this year he had never bred a cinnamon gouldian,he rang numerous breeders to find out what birds i had ,bird keeper mag,the late Russel Kingston to name a few,still no mention over all these years of Alan,Then last October -November i rang Alan ,these are his words as i best remember,i bred a cinnamon years ago but i couldn't keep it on the perch,i sent birds to Victoria but i very much doubt that these birds would be carrying the gene as it was that long ago,we talked for a hour and a half great person ,if i have remembered this wrong then i truly apologise Alan,i told tony of this conversation and thought nothing more of it.I was calling the bird cinnamon at this stage and having to many birds i decided to sell some,i advertised on pet link this attracted the interest of a person writing a new finch book,he asked if i would write an article and i said yes,excited i rang flav and we decided to write it together,work ,Christmas and holidays delayed the article,flav kept saying we have to write it,we need to be the first ,we have to let people know we bred this bird first,we have to get our names in the book,this went on for weeks,yeh i knew i had to write it but i was busy at work,the guy writting the book had no problems ,a few weeks went by and all of a sudden there was no hurry about the article ,no push ,things were quiet,then a phone call from flav saying he had found an old record book and that maybe the birds had come from Alan,i discarded this as it was not what i had been asked to write,tony had found his record book as well and had also rang the person writing the book unbeknown to me,the following week another call from flav saying that both tony and flav had written an article for the book ,i presume it is similar to the post tony presented,I WAS NOT HAPPY JAN,if they had information that Alans birds were caring the cinn gene all those years ago why is it only now that they have this wealth of information ,why try and find out for years what the bird is if you had all this info back then,i hope the bird did come from Alans stock as it proves once more that it is cinnamon,i have not spoken to either man since that day,notoriety and have to be the first keep ringing in my ears,this is the truth ,the whole truth and nothing but the truth,i swear garyh