I  have made some changes to my Finch Breeding Basics article, which was the first article that I posted on this website.
I have added a bit more information on the basic pointers for maintaining good quality stocks of finches that you have bred.
If I can think of anything else, I will tell you here.

When brushing an aviary the brush can be attached in may different ways and usually every bird breeder has their own way of doing this. I use a variety of methods, the first of which I will describe below:

The Poly Pipe Fastening Method:

To use the brush in this way you need the following tools and equipment:

Pieces of 38 mm pipe cut at 450 each end and cordless drill and 20 mm screws to attach to the wall. Wire puller and bag ties to secure the bundles of brush and grass.

Here I use a small amount of grass usually green panic and three branches of prickly leaf paperbark (melaleuca stypheliodes) making sure the end result when gathered together fits into a 38 mm piece of pipe.

This should be the end result. You can arrange the pieces of pipe to attach these bundles in any order you like to achieve the desired result, which could be four or five pieces high, or singly across the wall as shown in the above photo.

Prickly Leaf Paperbark
(Melaleuca Stypheliodes)

The above is a photo of the Paperbark I have growing in my back yard. It is approximately eight metre high, and gets a vigorous chop every nesting season. It is also frequently inhabited by Red Headed Finches, White Breasted Pigeons and Crested Pigeons.

It is a definite favourite of the native finches, with up to fifteen nests at a time.

I received this email from a user of this website, and I thought it would be a great idea for a quick post. Here is the email:

I’ve been into breeding finches before but have always had timber built aviaries with the old asbestos roofing. I don’t want to use these materials again therefore I am looking at a specially built colourbond aviary 4.5m x 2.25m x 2.1m. I am concerned about the heat factor as I live on the Gold Coast. Is colourbond OK or do you have any other suggestions?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

To answer the enquiry about construction of aviaries;

I can’t weld and I don’t know how to use steel, but this does not worry me because I prefer the timber frame with a hardiflex lining on the walls & ceiling with an iron (colourbond) roof.

The advantage is that you can build a very mouseproof interior, with the fibro lined walls preventing pests and predators such as mice and snakes from entering the nesting areas. The advantage of the hardiflex ceiling is, as well as providing insulation from the heat and the cold, it also stops any of the sweating and dripping that is inevitable with an unlined iron roof.

The hardiflex lined timber construction results in (if you are neat with your cutting of the hardiflex and good with a tube of “No More Gaps” and wet cloth) a very draftproof shelter, which is extremely important in the winter. I have yet to see the same effect from steel built aviaries.

I hope this can help you, because I am unable to really compare the two types of constructions through bird keeping and aviary building experience. But from my experience visiting other bird breeders housing Australian finches in steel aviaries, I do prefer the timber/hardiflex finish.

In conclusion, a friend of mine has just built a large set of steel construction aviaries, and has now gone to the trouble of lining the ceiling with hardiflex, mainly because of the dripping factor.

After all this, it all comes down to a personal choice. After all, there are thousands and thousands of finches bred in steel aviaries, so you are not doomed to fail or succeed as a finch breeder purely on the choice of your strutural materials.

I have kept finches for over 30 years but seriously since 1984 when I moved to Broken Head, NSW.I am a finch breeder and that’s all I keep. I always try to improve whatever species I choose to breed because this is what I believe all true bird breeders should aspire to do.

The following articles are derived from my bird breeding experiences, reflections and are wholly my opinions on what I have found works for me. Although I have gained a lot of knowledge and experience from the past with regards to breeding birds, what I write about here is what I do today.

It gives me a lot of satisfaction and is very personally rewarding when each day I can cast my eye over the collection and say to myself “That’s a nice bird; that’s a nice pair; that’s a nice lot of young birds”.

This is not going to be the way with all the birds you breed, but if you can truthfully say this to yourself often, you are on the right track to achieving what you have set out to do and to feeling this sense of satisfaction.

To achieve this you must have a basic knowledge of certain facts and principles that not only govern finches but all birds, including budgies, canaries and poultry. It appears from my experience that not all pairs or pairings produce better than themselves; it is probably less that 10%.

For example, if you breed ten Longtails from a pair, you are lucky if have one bird that stands out above the rest. You must keep this bird and to make sure this bird does not slip through the net you must:

1. Not sell uncoloured birds; because until you have seen the bird in full colour you have not seen the bird properly. So resist as long as possible the need to dispose of the bird, either by sale or giving it away.
2. What every bird breeder needs to have is a very good holding cage. Then you can take your young out of the breeding aviary and band the bird with an identifying ring; give them sufficient room to grow, socialize and develop mentally and physically to change from a juvenile to a beautiful, mature and most importantly fully coloured bird ready for the owner to appreciate the end result and decide what will be the future for this particular bird. One should never be in too much of a hurry.
3. Even if you do not exhibit your birds you should have a good set of show cages. You need to study each and every bird you breed, and I repeat, do not let any bird go from your possession until you have had a good look at it. Assess each species as a group; take the time because this is where you will get to see your birds up close and to view them separately and to look for any differences or characteristics that stand out in a particular bird as against another of the same species even a sibling. You are looking for any distinguishing features that appeal to a breeder. The good birds will stand out and these are the birds that will define your future successes. It is so much easier than looking at 10 birds in a box; sticking your hand in and hopefully pulling out the bird that looked all right.
4. If you find a bird amongst these birds that you would like to keep, then you must decide what to pair with this bird or birds. The next step in pairing is to find a suitable unrelated partner for the outstanding bird or birds.

So what next? There are several paths to follow.

Pair your best birds to best birds and keep them as unrelated as possible. It is hard to have completely unrelated birds because it is hard to track birds that may have come from your initial birds, they may have gone all the way around the country and back to you. But in their journey they may have picked up some genes along the way, so in reality they are not exactly the same.

But really, if you find you get two birds together and they breed good offsprings, then that is all you can really ask for, because even the best bred birds with an impeccable pedigree can still breed ordinary birds. I find that breeding good birds to good birds you give yourself the best chance.

When we think of genetics we try to pair birds that, as far as possible, are not related. If we think of most finches in the wild, they are a flock bird, so how do the rules apply? How do the birds know what bird is not related to them?

For example, take wild Gouldians. They breed at a particular time of the year. They leave the nest, join other juveniles and go through the socialization of the flock life, and moult into their adult plumage. They are heading towards their own breeding season to bond with a bird that they are attracted to and it is pot luck as to which bird they will pair off with. It is possible that the bigger the flock the better the choice of mating with a partly unrelated partner.

What we have to do as breeders is try to keep that flock gene pool and we can eliminate those brother-sister matings that inevitably diminish the flock’s genetic strength. You should always keep a record of your birds. Keep your gene pool intact and ensure that you do your best to pair birds as far as possible from each family.

In 1984, I bought five pairs of wild W.A. Longtails at a pet shop in Tweed Heads. These were of the last legal shipment from the west.

Since then, I have introduced five or six birds I acquired from a bird breeder in Casino, NSW in 1990, All the Longtails I have are from these birds and because I keep many single pairs and have a system of banding that tracks the family groups. Consequently, I have no problem with fertility or genetic defects, etc. I can go about my business, feeding etc and often cast my eye over the species and still say “What a nice lot of Longtails”.

You cannot do this if you just throw ten pairs of Longtails in an aviary and hope for the best. Birds will breed in a colony of same species but it is too time consuming to observe what is actually happening in the colony. What works for me, and the only way I know how to get results, is by breeding birds as single pairs of species in with other single pairs of species.

I have finally finished rebrushing the aviaries for the upcoming Autumn

It is amazing how quickly the finches respond to the fresh brush and nesting material

Quite a few nests have already been built, and birds are sitting. The first aviaries that I did several weeks ago have birds already feeding young.

Its a good time now as the hot weather should be just about behind us and here at Broken Head, we have quite a mild winter. Rarely do the aviary temperatures fall below 10 degrees C.

All looks good for the breeding season, which will go right through to the end of Spring.

I have given an explanation of what I have done in my article on Aviary Rebrushing.

Is there a more beautiful finch than the Gouldian? An old friend of mine said they must have been the most beautiful creature ever created and I tend to agree.

This is the time of the year when you start to see the results of the past breeding season. The birds are partly through the moult and you start to think of next season, such as what to pair with what; what bloodlines to keep and what to discard. Don’t make up your mind too soon as to what you want to breed, but be guided by what you have available – good bird to good bird. Don’t try to breed inferior Reds when you have a good supply of Black or Yellow or vice versa.

I have come across articles in different magazines, books etc where the writer advises breeders to keep head colour true such as red to red, black to black, yellow to yellow. From my experience, I have not found this to be good advice.

It seems all my best birds have been bred from black hens; Red cock – Black hen; Yellow cock – Black hen; Black cock- Black hen.

I have bred some beautiful Red and Yellow hens but have not bred many good birds with them. This seems to apply in all types of Gouldians whether they be Normals or any of the mutations e.g. White Breasted (WB) and Single Factor (SF) and Double Factor (DF) varieties.

The first thing I do when all birds are fully coloured is to pay particular attention to all the Black hens whether they be Normals, WB, SF or DF. I then next decide which cocks I want to keep and mate them to the Black hens, but obviously not always, because some Red Hens and Yellow Hens you just can’t part with. I try pairing these with different cocks, as you never know something may happen. Over the many breeding seasons I have found that the surprises come from the Black hens and the disappointments from the Red and Yellow hens.

One thing I have found recently is that the Red Faced Parrot Finch and their mutations are very compatible with Gouldians. I run two pairs of Gouldians plus one pair of Parrot Finches together in aviaries 5m length x 2.4m high and 1m wide, only using nest boxes. These two species compliment each other as they have the same needs both diet and nesting requirements and look good together in the flight.

I feed these birds separate trays each of mixed seed, canary and jap millet. Each morning birds are fed a dish of cooked seed with egg and biscuit mix. No live food is given but I give as much green feed/seeding grasses as possible.

These birds are one of my favourite finches. I have always had them. The yellow beak defines them from the eastern race, the Hecks Longtail with its somewhat stronger tones of colour and the distinctive red beak. I do not keep the Hecks as I find I need as much room as possible to keep as many single pairs of WA Longtails as is needed to keep the strain going strongly. They are a relatively easy bird to keep on a diet of mixed seed, separate trays of red pannicum, termites, clean water, seed and grasses.

They will nest in a nest box or a 10 cm x 20 cm wire cylinder, but prefer to build their own nest midway to high up in the brush. They need a roosting nest so if when they are moved from one aviary to another, or to the holding cage you should make sure they have sufficient roosting facilities.

They don’t need to be bred in a colony; just one pair per aviary I find is the best way.

Sexing from a visual perspective may seem simple when you see the cock with a big round throat spot and the narrow pear shaped throat spot of the hen. There are some hens that have a very large throat spot and there are some cocks that have the small throat spot. The problem is defining the special hen from the inferior cock. Some people say that when the young are first out of the nest they can pick the cocks from the hens, but this is still only picking the good cocks and inferior hens. What we should do to improve the birds is to find those good hens and mate them with the good cocks. The easy to pick hen should be discarded, that is the hen with the narrow throat spot, because if you breed this bird with a good cock bird, chances are you will not improve the quality of the birds. The improvement in overall quality will come from the hard to pick hens.

Question:

How to pick the good hen from the inferior cock bird by not using just the throat spot?

Read the rest of this entry »

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