FINCHforum

Hello Finch Friends,

I recently adopted a beautiful male pin-tailed whydah, Loki, who is in full mature plumage and introduced him to my outdoor aviary after a quarantine period. At first, Loki got along fine with the other finches and canaries. He picked out his favorite corner and settled in there without any problem. A couple of weeks later, after he felt comfortable in the aviary, he started chasing everyone around the aviary, away from not only his favorite perch, but all the other top level perches. He got so disruptive that I had to remove him.

Loki is now in a breeding cage by himself. I think he's too aggressive to be placed in one of my 2 flight cages. The cage is too small for him. I'd like for him to have plenty of room to fly, but he's too aggressive for my aviary. He's such a gorgeous bird, and I'd really like to keep him.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to get Loki to play nicely with his aviary mates?

Hello,

I went through the exact same thing and unfortunately there is really nothing you can do. They are in the second tier of aggressiveness and it is magnified when in breeding mode. if you want to keep him think about partitioning off a portion of your aviary just for him and a female or two or three.. They do well with a harem because if there is only one female he will constantly chase her around. having more than one kind of splits up the chasing. Also they are parasitic breeders so if you plan to breed you will need to do your homework.

Sadly this is why I didn't add a whydah to my recent finch farm order, as much as I really wanted to. I heard they're among the most aggressive of all the little birds and in the wild will claim entire yards as their own territories.

Might do well in your hookbill aviary!

TheExtremeCraftsman
Rick, I read about the breeding habits of pin-tailed whydah and decided that it was too challenging to breed them. It's why I have only keep the male. I thought that would keep him from going into the aggressive mating mode. Guess not

@Sheather
Dylan, I might try Loki out in the hookbill aviary. I'm a bit concerned that he's smaller than the budgies and lovebirds. He's fast though so maybe he'll be able to outfly the hookbills.

I doubt they'd harm him with that much space.

vienneparis

They can be incredibly obnoxious birds and I'm not surprised he is terrorizing your smaller birds. I watch them in my garden giving the other birds grief and I have even seen one male take on a shrike when the shrike happened to land too close to him (and the shrike is about 5 times his size...)

Put him in with the hookbills. Trust me, he will be fine and is more than capable of holding his own or getting away from them if need be.

Rox
Thanks for the input. I'll try him out in the hookbill aviary and see what happens. I definitely won't place him with the gentler finches again.

I can't believe you have wild whydahs in your garden! Sounds like you get a wide variety of colorful wild birds visiting. The most colorful wild visitors I get in my back yard are hummingbirds, which are amazing to watch. More often than not, I get the pesty woodpeckers, grackles, or thrashers that love to dig up my garden pots I've been looking for some sort of automated scarecrow to chase these pesty birds away from my patio garden.

vienneparis Vienne, we are blessed to have some beautiful birds in our garden and thankfully they mostly behave themselves You just inspired me to post some photo's on a new thread!

Good luck with Loki and please let us know if he settles into the hookbill aviary!

vienneparis - Try this out, the Contech CRO101 Scarecrow Motion Activated Sprinkler

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... +Sprinkler

Works quite well from everything customers told me when I used to manage Petland.

*Edited to add: Not for the wydah...lol But for your garden pests.

I have 2 of those scarecrows in my vegetable garden and they are great! It's the only thing that will keep the deer out

Colt
Thanks for the suggestion. I saw that on the Internet and thought it would work well for the vegetable garden. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work on my patio where I have my flower/tree pots. I don't want the patio to get wet from the motion sensored spraying.

Rox
I placed Loki in the hookbill aviary 2 days ago and he's doing well there so far. He staked out an area away from the budgies and lovebirds and pretty much stayed there. He seems to know that he's the smallest guy in the group and behaves accordingly. I think he's got a perfect place now to keep him out of trouble

vienneparis

Yay, fantastic news!! I'm really glad it has worked out for Loki

I'm glad he settled in ok with the hookbills. I'd hate to have to let him go otherwise.

Thanks, Roxanne & Dylan, for the suggestion.

vienneparis

Vienne, how is Loki doing?

I was watching a male whydah yesterday in my garden. He is still getting colour, only has half his tail and man is he full of attitude already! It made me think of you and your boy and how he is doing with the hookbill's