Society Background Colors

Society Finch Background Colors
23rd March 2011, 4:30 pm

SOCIETY FINCH BACKGROUND COLORS:
Chocolate, Chestnut and Fawn: Since the Café au Lait coloring is an integralCreamino characteristic, it is generally preferred to breed Creaminos in the darkest possible background color. Due to their high levels of feather pig-ments, the Chocolate background has been the gold standard for breeding November/December, 2005 - Journal of the NFSS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Creaminos. In general, the Chestnut and Fawn backgrounds are not nearly aspreferred for Creamino, the reason being that these two mutations havealready suffered a decrease in pigments. Creamino feather darkness isbelieved to be related to the background in which they are bred with ChocolateCreamino > Chestnut Creamino > Fawn Creamino, relative to overallCreamino pigmentation. I have not personally bred Creamino in a Chestnut or Fawn background, preferring instead to heed what breeders have communi-cated with me about their Creamino breeding experiences. I keep Creaminosin either the Chocolate or Black Brown backgrounds.

Black Browns, Mocha Browns & Red Browns: Commonly known as Euros,these birds are three-way hybrids between the Society Finch, the BlackHeaded Nun (Lonchura malacca) and the White Headed Nun (Lonchura maja)and in the case of the Red Brown, also possibly the Chestnut BreastedMannikin (Lonchura castaneothorax). (The term Euro was coined by the lateBob Rittman.) Euros have become all the rage in U.S. Society Finch circles due to recent importations from Europe, many via Canada.

The Black Brown background can also be used for breeding Creaminos, however some feel that since the Black Brown has such a high degree of eumelanin, it is not the best background to use for Creaminos.

A Creamino's coloring should always be warm, and some feel that using Black Browns, particularly very dark almost ebony ones, make for Creaminos which appear too cool in their color tones. While I do not keep or breed Mocha Browns and Red Browns and therefore cannot relay any personal experience, there is some evidence that diluted back color isn't as important in breeding Creaminos in the more color intensive Euros.

With regard to using Black Browns for breeding Creaminos, I do have one genuine German imported male Black Brown. He is not the best exampleof a Black Brown, exhibiting too much pigment reduction to be acceptable (in my eyes) for the Black Brown phenotypic designation. I consider this cockbird to be 'Euro Influenced' since with his intermediate phenotype, he's obvi-ously not a Chocolate nor is he a top quality Black Brown.

He is, however,noticeably darker than many of my Chocolate Society finches as well as being bigger, bolder, more vertical and he has much more impressive belly scales. I decided to use this cockbird to increase the size and improve the stance and belly scaling in my Creaminos. I set him up with a Creamino/Gray hen proge-ny of Lehigh's, and I had the additional pleasure to discover that my ‘Euro In fluenced' cockbird is also split for Creamino and Gray.

In their very first clutch, they gave me a Grayino male. Yet another Creamino casino payout!Grayino is the combination of Gray and Creamino (see 'Grayino' sectionbelow). Recently, this same pair gave me a male Creamino chick. As soon as he feathered out, this Creamino chick had decidedly darker pigment on his back (for a fledgling) than any of the Creaminos I have bred to date. He is also noticeably warm toned.

After his first molt, belly scales are becoming more apparent on his breast. Due to these very limited breeding results, Iremain unconvinced that Black Browns are not a satisfactory background colorfor breeding the Creamino mutation.

Furthermore, if you desire bolder Creaminos with more prominent belly scales, the Black Brown background is probably the way to go. Assuming you can find Black Browns, that is. Journal of the NFSS