They’re really quite active and endearing little birds. I personally enjoy watching my finches, as they’re quite active and are often busy courting each other, singing, preparing a nest, flying around or eating. Finches are very tricky to tame, and thus are pets for looking at more than anything. The finches are very different than the parrots I usually write about, since they don’t really rely on people for social interactions the way a lot of pet parrots do. Gouldian Finches - the one with the ratty head just hasn't finished molting into his adult plumage. I also have two spice finches and four Gouldians in with the societies and they all get along wonderfully. Pet finches really should be given enough room to fly and they should never be wing-clipped like parrots often are since they do not climb like parrots do. This set up wasn’t terribly expensive and it gives the finches lots of room to fly around in. I took off the side doors so the finches can fly back and forth between the cages. The cage-set up I use involves two of these… Plus, I kept both babies that my birds raised and I don’t really want them to breed with each other or back to their parents. I did let my societies raise a couple babies, but I’ve been putting fake eggs in their nests lately, mainly because if I let them raise every egg they laid, I’d be up to my armpits in finches. I also provide a cuttlebone, since my females do lay eggs, and the cuttlebone is a great source of calcium. I feed my finches a standard finch seed mix, along with some egg food and greens (they love broccoli). If eggs in a nest are to be taken, don’t just keep taking eggs away without adding fake ones, as the female may just keep laying more and more eggs to replace the lost ones. Note that even without a nest box, societies may still lay eggs on the floor of the cage. Society finches are usually excellent parents, to the point where they are often used to foster eggs and chicks of other, more difficult to breed finch species.įor those who want to keep societies but don’t want to breed them, the eggs they lay can be replaced with fake eggs right after they are laid, or the birds can simply not be given a nest. Once the young fledge (leave the nest) they will still be fed by the parents for another couple of weeks. Incubation takes about 13 days and the young fledge in about 21-25 days. Never use cedar chips, as they will irritate the birds’ respiratory systems. Most will pad the nest with some sort of nesting material and I’ve given mine timothy hay, straw, aspen shavings or strips of newspaper to use as nesting material. Societies will breed in nearly anything of suitable size but seem to like the woven bamboo nests, like the one in the picture above. Both males and females incubate eggs and feed nestlings. Male societies have a soft, short, squeaky-sounding song. Males and females of this species are similar in appearance, although males sing and females don’t. Birds can be paired for part of the year in order to breed and then placed in a flock during the rest of the year. The best breeding results tend to be from birds that are paired off or are kept in trios. Often, if several birds share a nest, eggs may not be incubated properly and won’t hatch. It’s really quite cute but can be a bit of a problem during breeding season. Even in a cage with several nests, it’s not unusual at all to see numerous birds all jammed in one nest. Societies prefer to be in groups or at least pairs. This makes them a nice addition to an aviary that houses other gentle species, such as Gouldian finches. They will get along with anything that will get along with them, and in fact, if bullied by another type of bird, they will usually just back off. I suspect that they’ve been called “society” finches due to their extremely sociable natures. Society finches are sometimes called Bengalese finches. The bird in the middle-right in the above photo is a crested society. Societies come in several different colours and patterns (as can be seen in the picture above), and there’s even a “crested” variety that has a circular crest on the head. Societies are likely descendents of the White-rumped Munia ( Lonchura striata), and some societies look quite a bit like wild munias. They’ve been bred in captivity for hundreds of years and are considered to be truly domesticated, so there’s no such thing as a “wild” society finch. The society finch ( Lonchura striata domestica) is one of the more common species of finch kept in captivity. The two at the bottom left are the offspring of the two just above them. How cute is that? Those are my society finches and are the topic of this post.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |