Seagreen RFPF

12 Dec 2010, 12:47

Been noticing a fair bit of activity going on in my aviary this morning

I also did a quick look into the box the Seagreen RFPF have been popping in and out of. There was an egg! My question is...I havent noticed one of the PF trilling so I cant be certain that I have a pair or not. If I had a pair, though, would nest building and an egg result if I had 2 hens??

12 Dec 2010, 21:25

Yes, two hens may nest, lay eggs and incubate. Normally, a male parrot finch in breeding mode will be pretty easy to spot. If you keep a pretty good eye on them and don't see any trilling and chasing throughout the early nesting stage, it would be a fair bet to assume you've got two hens.

13 Dec 2010, 09:45

Someone told me that you can see a difference in how far the colour goes back behind the eye on parrot finches. The head colour extends further back on the cock bird......not much help if you have two hens though!

13 Dec 2010, 10:06

98% of the time a mature cock bird will have a coloured feather around the vent. I sex my birds by under the beak the cock bird is more rounded where the feathers meet the beak and the hen is more pointed.

13 Dec 2010, 10:07

Thanks for the advice guys

Crossing fingers, otherwise I will be looking to get to normal red faced cocks and maybe sell the other pair. I only have 3 aviaries and will be adding Tricoloured soon. Obviously need to keep all 3 species seperate

13 Dec 2010, 10:08

Thats interesting Buzzard. Might have to catch them up then. Nice cool rainy day here so will put the aviary trap out

13 Dec 2010, 11:02

It's another one of those cases of cock has most head colour and hen has least. In theory. But most colourful hen could have more colour than least colourful cock. So just occassionally that method of sexing fails.
LML

09 Jan 2011, 08:46

I'm sooo glad others have trouble sexing them
I had a pair of BFPF I also had a tri-colour male coz he was sooo pretty & about 6 months ago I lost what I thought was the BF hen. I wasn't worried as I thought 2 males won't breed. Apparently I didn't look too closely & to my amazement the BF hen & the tri colour have bought out 3 males & a hen ----- all tri-colours !!!
I will now be looking for another tri- color male male now

Then I will have to get another BFPF male
Oh Dear !!!!

14 Jan 2011, 02:58

mrsmacka wrote:I'm sooo glad others have trouble sexing them
I had a pair of BFPF I also had a tri-colour male coz he was sooo pretty & about 6 months ago I lost what I thought was the BF hen. I wasn't worried as I thought 2 males won't breed. Apparently I didn't look too closely & to my amazement the BF hen & the tri colour have bought out 3 males & a hen ----- all tri-colours !!!
I will now be looking for another tri- color male male now
Then I will have to get another BFPF male
Oh Dear !!!!

Hi mrsmacka

These are not Tricoloured Pf. They are hybrids. As such you need to isolate them and never let them breed. Hybrids are a very bad thing as they sully the pure genetic strains of our birds.

As there were only about 20 pairs of Tricoloured PF originally bought into Australia we can ill afford to be cross breeding them.

It is actually a very well established fact that Tri and Blue Face will hybridise and as such should never be kept together, no matter what we believe their sex to be.

Whatever you do PLEASE do not on-sell them to ANYONE – especially do not sell them as Tricoloured PF. Unfortunately these birds are worthless in the Avicultural world. I know it sounds cruel but if it were me I would euthanize them.

14 Jan 2011, 20:27

While I agree that hybrids aren't good for aviculture I don't know if their unconditional destruction is warranted. I the occasional mistake is made and they aren't put into the trade but become part of a collection what is the harm? Most people just want a pretty bird to look at and breeding is not considered. Think of how many people keep tropical fish and how many actually breed them? Hybrids should be advertised as what they are and no breeder will want them but others may.