GS male plucking himself

[Colt]

I'm by no means an expert on Green Singers, but the finches I do have, when they clutch and the chicks hatch, the rearing of the chicks eats up quite a bit of time between that clutch of eggs and a new set.

It sounds like the pair are really good breeders and are in breeding mode. Trying to break them up seems to be stressing them out more.

I can think of several options here:

1. Allow the pair to breed and find homes for the babies. Sometimes local pet stores will buy them or trade you for them, or even give you store credit. Often times friends and family might enjoy them as well.

2. Allow them to clutch and remove all the eggs but one. If the egg successfully hatches one chick is easier to re-home than four.

3. Allow the pair to build a nest but before she can begin to lay the wind (ie. you) knock the nest down so that he has to build another one. Birds lose nests in the wild all the time. He'll spend energy building a new one and she won't lay if there isn't a suitable nesting site.

I would stop separating them and removing the nest and nesting materials completely. His desire to build is causing him to pluck himself and it seems to be causing you more stress as well.

You can also try shortening the amount of daylight they have in an day. Daylight affects birds and their breeding cycles. More daylight causes an increase in hormones that lead to breeding activity. Covering their cage earlier in the evening and leaving it covered longer in the morning might affect them enough to get them out of the breeding cycle.

[Ginene]

Great suggestions, Colt! I may have to use the 3rd one myself, as my owl pair wants to nest but they may be too young. I'm waiting to find out their exact age from their breeder.

[metinemre]

Thanks for the suggestions Colt, we`ll go ahead with no:3 and reducing the light. Let`s see what happens.

[Colt]

Awesome. Let me know how it works out.

[metinemre]

Mating season again. Nest and nesting material inside the cage. They are building the nest together and no excessive plucking since i started covering their cages, actually blocking the tv light etc with a room divider.

However they constantly put the nesting material in their water cup?
We put a 2nd water cup and same thing. Both cups filled with nesting material in an hour. Is there a fix for that?

[MiaCarter]

metinemre -- I've never had finches do this in the water bowl, but other birds certainly and I've had finches nest in the food bowl too.

Water tubes are a great alternative. (But I personally don't use them as I had super-fast-forming-mold issues.)

I've also used a water trough like this:
http://www.thefinchconnections.com/bird ... r-waterer/

(Actually, mine is insanely big. I think it's for chickens. LOL But ^^^this^^^ one is a much smaller size. I've been meaning to buy it myself.)

Also good for epileptic birds and handicapped birds at high risk of drowning in an open cup.

[ac12]

I use water tubes for my birds, cuz when I used a tray, the zebras used to bath in the drinking water splashing water all over the place. The zebras would lay eggs in the food tray.
So anything that looks like it could be a nest was used as a nest.