Black Throated X Gray Singing Finch Breeding

This is an accident of the breeding proccess anyway. Basically I intended to breed pure blood of singing finches, avoid any mules product of species crossing. Unfortunately, when I tried a couple of Gray Singing Finch to start with, as these days it is rare to find Gray Singing Finches in the market, proven that I have missed and got double female Gray Singers. Opposite of the seller marked the couple I bought from him, the birds laid a lot of eggs oftenly and never sitting on it. So I decide to separate them to prove what I am thinking is correct, those both Gray Singers are female.

Each of them laid 3 eggs in their own cage, several days after separated. After 20 years of breeding, it is still difficult to me to recognize sharply the sexing of Gray Singing Finches. Sexing the Black Throated Canary/Yellow Rumped serins or Green Singing Finch, by its physical appearance is easier than Gray Singing Finch.

Since I don't have any male Gray Singing Finch and had more male Yellow Rumped Seed Eater/Black Throated Canary ready for breeding, pushed me to put a male Black Throated Canary into the cage of one of the female Gray singing Finch. The couple seems ready for breeding, both of them, I also didn't found them fighting. Within a week, the couple has laid 3 perfect eggs and started sitting. Next 13 days, I found 2 chicks, hatched, and remains 1 egg, which I have to remove since I don't find signs the egg will be hatched.

The are good parents, good in feeding and never stop to feed the chick. It is resulting the chicks to grow faster and within 2 weeks they already started to move out of the nest. I have to wait until the chicks are independent enough, can take the wather temperature, which is now coming into rainy season in Java. But the most important thing is, they can eat the seeds fooding, after hard learning. Sometimes the parents also beat them, force them to get their own food and eat it, instead of asking from the parrent. It is now the time to take them out of the breeding cage, once those signs are clearly shown, and put the in the ordinary solitaire cage.

In case you don't well informed, the Black Throated Canary is little bit different than the Gray Singing Finch in physical appearances. It has yellow feather color in their rump [that's why they also called Yellow Rumped Serins] beside their black feather in the throat part. Ignoring the whole feather part around the body, the streaks, colors - the most considerable are those major signs, which the Gray Singing Finch doesn't have [they have white feather in rump part and throat]. Based on this facts, the chicks of this cross breeding is usually has feathers color appearance in between. The black feathers in the throat becoming fade/paler, we can say it is only the black spots now, and the yellow feather in the rear part is duller. The size of the chicks also between the size of its parrents. Usually the ablity to sing [means the volume, the freqwency, the style, the variations, etc.] also combination between the Yellow Rumped Serins and the Gray Singing Finches.

Breeding the Yellow Fronted Canary/Green Singing Finch (Serinus Mozambicus)

Actually, I was very surprised when I found out, during my last visit to Bratang Bird Market, there were a lot of Green Singing Finches in a bird seller. Seems the importing birds era has just begun - again! The temptation feeling is arose, for me to start again collecting this finch kind and kindly I asked a friend of mine in there to pick some good birds for me to start with.
I also asked the seller about a possibility if there is a female one. Lucky me, he said that he had recognized one female among hundreds of males. So, without thinking twice, straightly I told him to get it for me and I started to negotiate the price. I buy several Green Singing Finches that day and I only got one female.

Adding the bird description, shortly I took copy of a paragraph from Wikipedia, a simple one, to let the readers get more imagination if they never know before and never had this bird kind before, as the following ...
The Yellow-fronted Canary (Serinus mozambicus) is a small passerine bird in the finch family. It is known elsewhere and in aviculture as the Green Singing Finch.
This bird is a resident breeder in Africa south of the Sahara Desert. Its habitat is open woodland and cultivation. It nests in trees, laying 3–4 eggs in a compact cup nest.
The Yellow-fronted Canary is 11–13 cm in length. The adult male has a green back and brown wings and tail. The underparts and rump are yellow, and the head is yellow with a Grey crown and nape, and black malar stripe. The female is similar, but with a weaker head pattern and duller underparts. Juveniles are greyer than the female, especially on the head.
The Yellow-fronted Canary is a common, gregarious seed-eater. Its song is a warbled zee-zeree-chereeo. Wait a minute, this wiki description is not quiet well presenting its nature sound ... hahaha. I can not describe it too :-) maybe later, I can up load a short video for this.
I choose a male and put it as a pair in a cage. I tried as many as possible to find out the facts, is this pair match or not. Exactly I did not missed, never made mistake, in pairing singing finch. The third morning, I heard a good sound from them, I checked it and I have found the male is feeding the female, this is the sign. So, I modify the cage to become a breeding cage by putting a nest, add other necessary equipment to support the breeding.

I put a nest with a shape like quarter part cut of ball, made from bamboo braid, which has been proven that the pair doesn't want this nest type, as they destroyed the nest materials. As I have some experiences on this, it works for some birds and it doesn't works from the other birds. Seems they has their on taste and demand for this nest thing.

So, I took the nest when the nest material were perfectly destroyed and thrown to the floor. I let them in the cage for several days without nest until I put another nest, box shaped, made from wooden as seen in the picture. For couple days I didn't see the birds did not destroy and try to re-shape the nest material, so it was a good sign that the bird is ready to use the nest. This is the time I have to put more in vary and quantity of food to let the female becomes more fat and ready to lay some eggs.

One morning, several days after the new nest box was put, I heard a familiar chirps sounds of the pair that just laid egg. I check it and I see an egg has been laid, so this is the beginning for them to stay in its hung place with no more water spraying bath nor sun bathing. This is a must, to create a condition that the pair shall feels comfort and safe from any hindrances, such as moving the cage also a big hindrance to them. To let them continue the brood until the hatching day is coming for the 13 to 14 days ahead. 3 clear white eggs has been lain, one per day, in the nest. I just forgot and could not make any mark in the eggs, since at the first egg laid, I had to go to Jakarta for the office job duty and continued with attending Anthrax Live Show and some places to go to. We are now awaiting for the couple days to see the eggs are fertile or not. Hopefully this is gonna be a good start.

I think I have over fed them during the brood period, which resulting the hen laid 2 more eggs in the day # 10 & # 11. I took the additional eggs to let the previous eggs perfectly sit by the hen.

The picture is taken at day # 3 of the new born chick, no feathers arise yet, and it needs perfect temperature from the parents to keep them warm and alive. Usually the feather will grows after 5 days old.
Of course, the eggs are fulfilled with embryo, zigot and becoming mature chick inside the shell, as the parents are young and fertile. Unfortunately, only one egg could hatched and surely this must be the first egg, the remaining 2 eggs are unlucky, died inside the shell without ability to break it.
It is now 7th days for the chick to stay alive. The body size is getting bigger and bigger, growing very fast. A very lucky chick since it doesn't had any brother, it takes all foods fed by both parents. Doesn't needs to compete with its nest mates.

The feathers starts to grow, some yellow color feathers are clearly out of the skin. The eyes are now opened wide all the time, ready to take the food supplied by the parents. It is very rare to hear the chick is sounding its sound asking to be fed. Seem it always fully served, never feels hungry.
It is now 2 weeks old, the feathers are growing out with showing the colors just like its parents, absolutely :-) it is also responding to people activities, such as alerting to human moves, feeling afraid of the hand when feeding, looking at its parents movement, etc.

Just wonder, if there are 2 more chicks with the same size together in that small nest .... maybe it will always be fitted naturally, but one thing I can not stand is the waste of 3 chicks in a small nest for at least 2 weeks, wooooeeeeiiiggss ...

And now, the chick is growing bigger and bigger. As it seen in the next picture, it has now the size closely with its parents, including the color of the feathers. Slight differentials are seen only at the length of the tail and the color a little bit duller. You can not see which one is the chick without seeing the detail more carefully now.
The pair of this finch is very productive, 3 weeks after hatch its chick, the hen is laying its next 3 eggs and started to incubate, but still there is a chick, 3 weeks old, in there which needs to be fed.

I have to supervise it more careful and I found out that there is no problem arises, so I don't have to take out the chick away from the breeding cage. In case the is a problem, the cock shall be taken out too, together with the chick and hopefully it could still feeds the chick.

The second breeding chick has been grown, old enough to be put away from its parents. The parents also has abandoned them, ready to breed again. So, as I watch them carefully, look at those chicks are taking some kind of food and chewing it, start from the egg, egg food, ant's eggs, corn and last but very important: the seeds. Seeds shall be a parameter whether the chick will survive or not. Once they can take the seeds, the risk to death is getting lower and the probability to live are raising.

There is a time where the younger chicks are out of its shells. The problem I have seen is the older chick may harmful and may hurt its young brother, so I decide to take it out of there. Fortunately it ready to live dependently, as it has reach its 5 weeks.