FINCHforum

I was cleaning the cage of the CFWs and the female got out as I was putting the bottom back on. Our tame hand-fed zebra boys, Spot and Messi, were enjoying some spray millet over a towel on the couch in the living room. They haven't yet showed any interest in the other birds and instead they spend their entire time either jumping on us or following us around the apartment. So the escaped female zoomed into the living room and started flying circles and calling frantically for the male. I thought to myself, oh dang, there we go, the first lesson in "fearing humans" courtesy of the new wildling. So I walk over to the living room to assess the situation and guess what I see. The babies are TERRIFIED of the female! She was flying around following them (instinctive flock-like behavior I guess), and the babies were RUNNING from her as if she was a hawk about to eat them. Every time she would come close to one of them they would shriek and take off. Then as soon as they saw me, they darted towards me and hid inside my shirt. This is by far the funniest thing I've seen happen with these two. I couldn't stop laughing. The female must've been thoroughly confused.

After I put her back in her cage, the boys wouldn't come off of me. They didn't even want the millet anymore. They just clung to my shoulder, occasionally sounding the alarm. And that's why I'm calling them humanoid finches. I don't think they realize they're actually birds, not humans. lol

afinch
That is a really funny story. Were they hand fed by chance?
It is really cute, but may prove problematic in future if you are planning on keeping them with other birds or breeding them.

Not planning on breeding or housing with anything. These two rise to the status of "companions"

They were handfed cause the parents didn't feed.

afinch
Well then, that's a different story. I just wonder what will happen when they grow up and discover 'GIRLS' ???

That might make for more hilarious episodes. I'm in the process of breeding some uber cute CFWs. Maybe they'll change their mind when they get acquainted with some pretty ladies.

afinch
Oh, I bet they will. Then be prepaired for your companions becoming very suspicious of you and your motives.

lovezebs wrote: afinch
Oh, I bet they will. Then be prepaired for your companions becoming very suspicious of you and your motives.

It'll be fine if that happens. But a more likely scenario is the new comers will be tamed prior to joining the humanoid flock ;) Given the chance, I won't be mixing these two with non-tame birds.

lovezebs can you imgine these two becoming suspicious? :]

Sweet! I hope you can manage to keep them non-suspicious.

You need to change your board name now to "tamefinch"

HAHA. Atamefinch.

afinch
They are adorable and look so content. I'm sure you are enjoying them!

finchmix22 we are absolutely in love with them. And they reallllllllllly know how to work us. You know that sound that zebs make when they enter their nest to roost? All we have to do is cup our hands and they will fly and sit in them and make those sounds. Then if we kiss their backs they start making them really loudly lol. The only way I can describe it is: utterly ridiculous.

The thing that is pleasantly surprising me is that they're fairly intelligent. As someone who has mostly focused on training parrots before and never interacted with my finches, I always thought of them more like automatons. Now I'm realizing that can't be farther from the truth. They actually have personalities and some reasoning abilities. Last week my wife actually told me "I could not have asked for better pets. They are so independent and low maintenance and at the same time we can interact and play with them anytime we want". I can't agree with her more!

I hate to say this (because I know it may encourage some irresponsible practices), but a completely tame zebra finch is an entirely different story. I really had no idea and would have never viewed them differently if not of those two. I wish it weren't so unbelievably hard to tame them.

I understand. We had four GS that were tame at one time, but we didn't have time to keep them that way, so they joined the flock. They are not scared of us now, but they don't just fly to us anymore.