FINCHforum

So... I have tried to give my society pair a box nest, a baboon nest, everything you can think of.

THIS IS WHAT WORKED!



So, I saved money and recycled, if you do the same thing, you will save money

I know their was another thread with funny nesting ways... but I couldn't find it. So here is another onel

Yes, some of the big time breeders use cardboard boxes as they are cheap and can just be discarded after the chicks fledge.

just like children you give them an expensive toy and all they want to do is play with the box

ken

SO HERE ARE THE BABIES OF THOSE SOCIETIES.... THESE PICTURES WERE A COUPLE DAYS AGO. THEY HAVE SIX TOTAL AND ARE ALL DOING WELL!

I love the fact that you can see the picture of the nest on the box! Congrats on the chicks. Who knows what goes on in their little birdie brains?

Thanks Hilary!

hi emily
they are lovely little chicks

ken

Oh my, that figures, and here I am thinking about purchasing the "dishwasher safe" plastic nest boxes, bla bla bla...

BTW, may I ask what your using for nesting materials?

The only thing I've found so far has been cocunut fiber, so I was wondering what other materials are safe.

Hi rottie...

Yes... I've found much cheaper ways to help my birds nest these days

I use this nesting material:

http://www.justbirdstuff.com/product.ph ... 248&page=4

It is a great material, b/c it's a combo of many different things. My finches love it.

I thought I'd also most a recent pic of the babies, which are much bigger now:

I just posted a photo to the Cages gallery titled Nest Building Gone Wild! I got the idea last week from the Feed forum to gather wild grasses from my yard and an unmowed field near my house. At first I stripped the seed from the stalk, but then I started breaking off the seed heads and including some stalk. The Societies used the material to build a simple arched bower above their nest, but the Zebras got very excited and built a cantilevered extension out the right side, and then added up and down to create the mass shown in the photo. I think you can make out the original woven grass nest I gave them in the middle of it all. They work on it all the time, so who knows when it will be "done". They're both males, btw. Anyway, they seem to find grasses to be adequate nesting material, and it's free!

for nesting material you can run a few sheets of A4 through your shredder for a start..coir from coconut shells is also good i use horse hair aswell and moss that has been dried out...dry grass cuttings and just long grass stalks.....but believe it or not i was looking round my aviary today and checked a java nest with 5 chicks in it...and part of the nest material was a dead baby zebra finch that had been dead a long time obviously been raided from another nest..i told you javas where vicious

ken

^^^ that paints such a morbid picture for me...

hi olivia
it turned out that all the young had been tossed from a nest in the aviary and i find the majority on the floor and they had all been pecked by the quail and they were quite old so obviously the java had picked it up off the floor and shoved it in its nest needless to say i took it out yuck!



ken

I'd be afraid to use grass clippings from around my area. My yard needs yearly treatments for bugs and mosquito's. Additionally the "common ground" area's are all sprayed for the little blood sucking insects as well.

I just don't want to take the chance that I'll indroduce some kind of harmful chemical.

I like the shredded paper idea, I have plenty of that

I once saw somone suggest dryer lint... But I was worried about that because of the faberic softener sheet's , detergant's etc.

Maybe I worry too much?