Soft or hard feather?

[Clairecanary15]

Hi

Can anyone help me decide if Charlie in the pictures below is a soft or hard feather. I don't find it very easy to tell with the brown colours. He has fawn, White ground colour and grey like his dad who is a Blue.
I apologise for the pictures in advance as he is skittish with the phone.

 

[sheeluhwhet]

Man, I wish I knew more about this stuff. Though after doing a quick google search, Id like to say soft? If be had hard feathers, should his body shape be more visible?
(Im not sure though, I'm just making an educated-ish guess lol)

 

[Clairecanary15]

Im with you there @sheeluhwhet. Im leaning towards soft too but I am unsure and dont want to put him with a hard feather if not. The hard feather is more sleek..so beautifully put about his body shape being more visible

 

[Serin]

It's not a fawn, it's a blue, though not all blue are really gray, and this one looks more brown.
It looks like a hard feather to me

 

[sheeluhwhet]

It's not a fawn, it's a blue, though not all blue are really gray, and this one looks more brown.
It looks like a hard feather to me

What are characteristics of hard-feathered canaries?

 

[Begone]

@finchly

 

[iamwhoiam]

Can you explain soft vs hard feathered? I'm too lazy to look it up on the internet.

 

[finchly]

@sheeluhwhet @iamwhoiam Hard feathering has more to do with color than the ‘feel’ of a feather.

So a hard feather is a non-frost. The color goes right to the end. Hard also has a different shape than soft, I believe it is wider at the base whereas a soft is more what we consider the regular, or more oblong feather shape.

I believe this is a hard feathered bird and his color is blue. He is beautiful. If he was a soft feather I think you could see some of the white ground but I’m not sure that’s correct.

The reason this is important is you don’t want to breed Hard x hard You end up with lots of lumps and feather cysts and a 25% mortality rate in chicks.

 

[Serin]

You actually don't want to breed hard to hard. There is a lethal factor. There is no lethal factor in soft canaries, but it can produce feather cysts if done over many generations. The purebred gloster canary only has a soft feather variant and it is rather prone to feather cysts.

Still, I've bred soft x soft a few times and had really high fertility, five fertile eggs a clutch.

 

[finchly]

You’re right I fixed it. The lethal is in hard x hard.

Interesting! The soft x soft.

 

[iamwhoiam]

@sheeluhwhet @iamwhoiam Hard feathering has more to do with color than the ‘feel’ of a feather.

So a hard feather is a non-frost. The color goes right to the end. Hard also has a different shape than soft, I believe it is wider at the base whereas a soft is more what we consider the regular, or more oblong feather shape.

I believe this is a hard feathered bird and his color is blue. He is beautiful. If he was a soft feather I think you could see some of the white ground but I’m not sure that’s correct.

The reason this is important is you don’t want to breed Hard x hard You end up with lots of lumps and feather cysts and a 25% mortality rate in chicks.

That's very interesting. Never knew about hard and soft feathering. Don't remember ever seeing a canary that color. He is quite beautiful.

 

[Garet]

I don't know anything about hard and soft feathers but you have a gorgeous powder puff and I just want to squish him and his floooooooooooff.

How do you canary people ever find the time to do anything with all that fluff around to kiss???

 

[Serin]

Generally canaries will not let you touch them, @sheeluhwhet 's bird being the very special exception. I can't touch any of mine.

 

[sheeluhwhet]

Thank you for explaining @finchly and @Serin The terminology makes a lot more sense now. The lethal factor sounds scary
I did a little more digging and came across this. I'm wondering if any of y'all will find it useful?
The Canary Handbook - Matthew M. Vriends, Tanya M. Heming-Vriends - Google Books

Also, @Clairecanary15 , Charlie is beautiful and so fluffy. The pattern on his feathers look so cool!

@Garet it's hard. It helps that I can bring my work home with me though lol

 

[finchly]

ow do you canary people ever find the time to do anything with all that fluff around to kiss???

It is really hard Garet! They are so beautiful, and very silly. Like my male Gloster tries to take a bath on his broccoli.

did a little more digging and came across this. I'm wondering if any of y'all will find it useful?
The Canary Handbook - Matthew M. Vriends, Tanya M. Heming-Vriends - Google Books

Hey thank you for that! I read everything I can get my hands on - will definitely read that one.

 

[Clairecanary15]

Hi all

Thankyou to everyone who has replied wow.

I learnt a while ago that a canary can be either a hard or soft feather type. It was a real issue for me and I had to work out what I had in the avairy. I had no clue about either and done extensive research.

Thankfully Charlie's parents is a hard x soft which is the perfect combination by breeding standards across the board. However as many have said it is safe for a soft x soft should the offspring not be bred with a soft feather..this is then called double buffing and leads to the feather being increasingly softer. 1-2 generations of double buffing is ok but then a hard x soft or soft x hard is required to bring the feather back into condition.

There is alot of terminology that basically means the same thing.

Soft feather could also be called =
buff, non-intensive, frosted, schimmel & mealy

Hard feather could also be called =
Yellow (not the colour), intensive, non-frosted & jonque.

I actually prefer the terms intensive and non-intensive.

A hard x hard does cause the lethal factor of 25% of the clutch, unhatched eggs and death of hatched chicks. The lethal factor also occurs by dominant white x dominant white. Genetics is a mine field but very interesting.

 

[sheeluhwhet]

Great job with the research @Clairecanary15 ! And yay for Charlie!

I was wondering what intensive and non-intensive meant (i came across a breeding chart during my google search). This is an extra question, but how do you prevent your birds from breading with the wrong birds??? Do you introduce new birds or rehome them??

 

[finchly]

Great job with the research @Clairecanary15 ! And yay for Charlie!

I was wondering what intensive and non-intensive meant (i came across a breeding chart during my google search). This is an extra question, but how do you prevent your birds from breading with the wrong birds??? Do you introduce new birds or rehome them??

Yes you’d have to separate the birds (during breeding season) and/or rehome related ones. I have the 2 parent birds and an extra hen so two years ago I kept one male to pair with my hen. Which was not successful lol. Anyway now I have the hurricane Irma babies. One is in love with her brother! They live in a group flight cage with no nest so all is good. The young ones I mean. The original 2 parents, Mama and Robin, have their own flight. They’re allowed to come out during flying time but they have to go back in the right cage at night.

You could also just toss eggs if there were any, and not provide nests.

 

[finchly]

Odd. I went back and put in paragraphing so it’d be easier to read... and it went away. Sorry!

 

[Clairecanary15]

@sheeluhwhet

To prevent the wrong pairings I sent photos of each canary to a breeder I know to determine which was which feather type at the start of this saga. I have then learnt from him and through other resources. I still find it difficult to tell the difference with browns, greys and clears though..hence posting on here. Thankfully the hard/intensive feathers paired with the non-intensives/soft feathers..phew. If I find a fallen feather it is easier to tell.

The young I have are either sold or kept but moved to a different location to stop inbreeding.

Intensive and non-intensive still means the same as the other feather types. The feather types are genetic, like dominant and recessive. Dominant and recessive has a different meaning to the intensive and non-intensives. Its just about ones own preference.