Our kids

[slwatson]

Dramoth

Your kids are adorable, and you have a great set up. The painted firetail finch is gorgeous.

[Babs _Owner]

Dramoth

Great pictures!!! what a fun aviary!

[Dramoth]

I was looking online to see if I could find a breeder who had a mated pair of firetails... and I ended up on gumtree (the Australian version of craigslist) and there is one guy selling a bunch of zebs (including what appears to be a double black faced male and female) for 10 bucks a pop. The pics of the conditions that the birds are kept in makes me want to give my dad the 70 bucks to buy all the zebs and bring them home and give them a happy home in with our birds.

It makes me wonder why some people are arseholes like this and don't bother to look after their birds properly

[Dramoth]

3 of our newest kids out of the nest and exploring the big wide world. Still got 2 more to fledge over the next couple of days I think

[lovezebs]

Dramoth

Zebra babies are absolutely adorable .

[Dramoth]

lovezebs

They definitely are... I love it as you watch them grow and slowly moult into their adult feathers and start showing whether they are male or females.

And listening to them learn to sing is so relaxing as well

[lovezebs]

Dramoth

Not sure about their singing being relaxing, lol. I have my birds indoors, and the Zebras, can get a bit annoying after a while mixed with the rest of the multi species gang.

When I talk on the phone, I've had people wondering if I was calling from the Zoo, or a pet shop.

I normally enjoy Canaries singing, but right now, I have four males competing with each other all day long. Holy crow, you can hardly hear yourself think in my kitchen .

I do enjoy Gouldian's singing though. They have this soft whispery song, that is easy on the ears and inoffensive.

Enjoy your babies .

[debbie276]

Adorable!
best of luck

[monotwine]

Dramoth Lovely variety of Zebbies. They still are some of the coolest finches to keep. Full of characters.
I know a few Australian breeders. Birds really are very expensive there. Even native ones.

@Rox know of one breeder trying to bulk up painted's here. May be some time before they are fully available. Currently the ratio of male to female is very skew and so limited pairings can be made.

THEY are gorgeous in live view. And cool to watch when they make their nests, they line it with stones.

[Dramoth]

monotwine

It's going to be next week before we get the painteds. I've finished their breeding box and we are going to build another aviary which will bolt up to our original aviary.

It's going to incorporate an airlock section where we can get in the aviarys without potentially letting any of our kids get out of there. Once we get the new aviary attached, we are going to open up the doors between the two... and I am going to try and herd the Zebs into the new one... so we can do some maintenance on the original one.

And in the meantime, I am going to continue making new nesting boxes for the aviary... although, I am thinking of pulling the nests for a couple of weeks.

[monotwine]

Sounds like a fantastic plan. Happy birding.
PS Make the extension as big as possible. Lol its inevitable you will need more space. You are hooked. Lol

[Dramoth]

monotwine

Have been hooked on birds all my life. My grandfather was a breeder of budgies and canaries.

Now, I'm back into it

[monotwine]

I just found initially there was no restrictions to my allotment of space for birds... but now no more cages allowed. I only have two. ha ha. But I can understand. The two I have are more than enough and one is rather excessive (but the way I like it).

[Dramoth]

We went around to the bird breeder and got some new little kids today... 2 Red zebs (male and female) and a female charcoal zeb. I posted about the melodrama in my other thread...

[slwatson]

Dramoth

Mark

I just read what's listed under your signature...I have issues with anxiety and depression, and my finches and our two dogs have helped tremendously. Watching them is the best therapy!