Finch Birds...what species, what gender are they?

Question

Hello? I have two Finch birds which i bought at the flea market...one I'm sure is the male, Zebra Finch (Pepper,) has orange beak, orange cheeks brown feathers with white dots by its wings. Next one is (Oreo.) Thought he was the male at first. He's pretty much black with grey and some white on him. They recently laid eggs after having them for about two months, three months old when I got them. Oreo is always in the basket with the eggs and pepper goes in and out and jumps everywhere. Can someone help me determine what gender they are? If they are of two different species will the eggs hatch, or is at a bad idea to let them mate? It was not my intention to have them mate, I just thought they were two cute birds and selected them from about a dozen or so birds. But I'm convinced that Pepper is the male now and Oreo the female...Thanks guys!

Answer 1

the one with the orange cheek is a male...and the other one is a female...they are both finches so it's ok for them to mate, i suppose...

Answer 2

Hi, Well it sounds to me like your bird Pepper IS a male Zebra Finch, that is for certain. I have about 8 breeding pairs myself right here talking their lil' heads off while I type this. A little info on them....They're a species of grass finch indigenous to Australia that is now a world wide popular cage bird. They're a hardy species, being easy to care for and which breed quite readily (& frequently) in captivity. They love diced up lettuce and smushed hard boiled eggs as a weekly food treat! Don't give it to them but say once each week due to too much moist foods can give them the diarriah, which makes cage cleaning a chore that you'd need to do more often than once every 2 weeks.

As far as "Oreo?" I think you'll need to try a bit harder on the birds description. Being "black with some grey on him..." is too vauge a identification. Is the bird the same general size as pepper? Is it's beak colored ?- orange perhaps?  Did you name it 'Oreo' because it has a distinct two- tone color pattern -say black on top and grey on it's chest & belly? I only ask cause their are other species of finch that have that sort of color pattern. (Tri-Colored Nuns ) . One thing that might help is  the vocal sounds the other bird makes. Does it's song sound like peppers? Does it go "Neh-Nehh- Nehh " all the time? Telling us these things will help us ID the species. Even tho' it could be a Zebra finch of a Faded or Pied variety or odd reccessive feather pattern  I  can't say w/o a better description .Good news is It must be a female bird, for you did say that there are eggs!

Answer 3

Yet another person buys an animal of unknown origin from an unknown seller, without the first clue about how to care for them.

Animals aren't shoes or handbags.  You don't just pull out your charge card and take it home.

I own dozens of birds.  I think you should have thought this out more before becoming responsible for the life or death of another being.  My guess is they don't last three months before their annoying screeching gets on your nerves and you get rid of them. What a lovely thought.