Aussie Finch Forum

Hello all looking for some info on mules as feeders. As the old story goes breed a canary to either a gold or green finch and you get a mule, males for singing and females were pretty much useless from what I’ve been taught. Now I have had a discussion with a breeder of show canaries which he uses feeder birds (fosters for us here in Australia) to allow them to raise young on good show stock, won’t go into details. So now he has told me that female canary can be hard to come by so he uses mule hens paired to low quality males to foster eggs under as mules are infertile and these make great parents. Anybody else ever try this? Personally I’ve used fifes or boarders as fosters when needed.

I do but fifes are the best

hen mules are very skittish sometimes but a good mule hen is worth a 1000 fifes in terms of fostering

Thanks yes agree fifes are my got to bird for fostering but now lean toward a boarder for the bigger show birds. Might have to look at a trial and error routine with a few female mules and see if they can raise a Fife egg all the way through. Ideally I would like show birds to raise their own young but a backup plan is always a there