FINCHforum

I'm so excited! Yesterday, a friend who's leaving town has given me 2 zebra finches. Oh, by-the-way, I know diddly squat about finches, so this is a ground-up learning situation. I've been reading like mad online. My questions are:

1. My friend thought she had two males. However, every site says only the males vocalize, and both birds are beeping quite well. One looks exactly like a female, but is it true that ONLY males vocalize?

2. The "female" snatched the known male bald a few months back (he had about 3 feathers left), and my friend separated them into two cages. These cages have almost nothing in them to keep these little birds from going nuts. If I put string and toys in the cages, could I possibly try having the birds together again?

3. I have some raffia and was wondering if that's safe for the birds to pluck from the cages for nesting.

4. I also have a Chow dog that has great soft under-fur. When I groom her, I put it in a big bowl outside (springtime), and the birds grab it as prize nesting material. Has anyone tried using soft dog fur for nesting material for their zebra finches?

5. These cages are "normal" bird cage size, but they don't seem big enough to allow a bird to fly. I'd like to make or buy a good sized cage to put in front of my dining room windows. I understand that a tall cage wouldn't be used well, as the birds don't tend to fly up and down, but rather ahead. Is there a good cage for finches that anyone can recommend?

Well, I hope these aren't too many questions.

Thank you,

Karla

Hi Karla. Congrats on acquiring your finches, I'm sure you'll find them delightful.

I have offered dog hair in small quantities to my finches and they snatch it up quickly. My dogs are Dalmatians, so they don't have that thick underfur, but what they lack in quality they more than make up for in quantity. We Dal owners have a joke: Dals shed 2x a year - 6 months in the beginning, and 6 months at the end . I don't offer it right after giving the pups a flea preventative, though. I don't know if it would be harmful to my birds, but I'd rather not take the chance.

As for housing, I am very happy with the flight cage I have. I know others here have this or similar cages, check the link here.

I don't know about your other questions, so I will defer to others.

Hi, Karla, and welcome to the forum! I will try to answer a few of your questions.

1. Both male and female will make the beeping, or meeping, call. The male has a song that is completely different from the call, and the female does not sing. Except for a few mutations, the male will also have an orange cheek patch, and the female will not.

2. Zebras are notorious feather pluckers. There is an article at the Finch Information Center which gives some recommendations on how to handle this problem.

3. I don't know about raffia, have never used it. What you want to watch out for in nesting material is something that they can get tangled around their legs or feet. If you are not planning to breed your finches, then I would suggest that you don't give them a nest or nesting material. They will sleep just fine on a perch.

4. I haven't used dog hair either. Some sites say don't use it, but then some sites say don't use hay, and I use a lot of that. I agree with jabo322, if you have just used flea products on the dog, you wouldn't want to give the dog hair to the birds.

5. In my opinion, finches shouldn't be kept in anything smaller than 30x18x18, with the 30" being the length. Even though they are small birds, they are much more active than some of the bigger birds. If they are kept in too small a cage, they can have problems like feather plucking, aggression, etc. Be sure and shop around for cages, there are all kinds and prices out there, and some include shipping and some don't. I have the same cage that jabo322 has, it is a great cage and looks nice in your house. It also has enough room for additional finches, if you get bitten by the finch bug. Someone on here recently purchased the same cage as jabo322, and Quality Discount Cages price-matched a cheaper site, so be sure and ask about that. There is a perfectly good economy model cage that is 30x18x18, but I believe you have to buy more than one at a time. It is available at this site: www.birdandcage.com. You could look on eBay, there are sometimes deals on cages, but you have to watch shipping charges on eBay, too. I've gotten cages on craigslist before, but I find that most of them are either parrot cages, or just not going to work for finches.

Be sure and read the species info on Zebras at the Finch Information Center, that will help you a lot.