FINCHforum

After I finished building my bird cage an hour ago, I attached some of the Manzanita branches I bought at the bird mart yesterday onto the cage. Soon after, I released my lone gouldian into the flight cage.

Now, I've been observing her ever since she's been released. From what I can tell, she tries really hard to fly up to the highest perch but simply slides right down (because the highest part is a bit slanted). On the leveled parts of the perches, she will only sit there for a little bit before flying off and landing back down at the bottom of the cage. Once she's at the bottom, she'll look up and attempt to fly up again.
She is still getting used to flying in this cage, as she does seem to flutter around a bit, as if to scope things out or because she isn't sure on where to go exactly. So she's spending most of her time at the bottom of the cage, looking up.

My concern now is, are my manzanita perches just too smooth for gouldians and/or finches in general? Should I sandpaper them down? Or is she just not used to them and will eventually adapt?

After all, it has only been an hour or so since she's been introduced to the cage/perch and this post. She just seems a bit restless with the new environment and I don't want her to exhaust herself too much trying to get up higher to feel at ease.

Any feedback would be appreciated!

You can add a different kind of perch so your bird has a choice. Yes the birds will slide, but none of my birds or their babies had any 'problems' adapting to manzanita.

I will attempt to add variety if she does not adapt to it soon.

I have used locally grown/wild Manzanita branches in the past, with my gouldians. However, when I sold all my gouldians two years ago, I got rid of the branches as well.
The manzanita I bought from the bird mart are much smoother than the ones I have collected in the past. As if they were sandblasted to perfection.

She is now sleeping on a leveled area of the Manzanita perch, I assume she's gotten a bit more used to it now. I will continue to observe her behavior tomorrow, when she is awake again. If she continues to struggle, I will probably go out and buy some new perches of different texture.

Thank you, Asym.

Sounds to me like they are just too smooth. I use branches from the yard with the bark still on, it gives them something to grab hold of.

I think I read somewhere on the forum that you can "rough up" your slippery perches so the birds have a better grip on them. Do a search on the forum. Maybe scraping it with the prongs of a fork will provide some grooves for their toes to grip. It's worth a try. My guys needed a few days to adjust to those perches too, as the breeder I purchased them from didn't use them. Now they use them without a problem.

Woke up today and watched her a bit. She seems to have gotten used to the perches and I no longer need to rough em up after all. I will continue to monitor in the meantime, in case the situation changes. Guess I was just being overly nervous yesterday.

Thanks y'all!

Debbie, do you have a curing process with using branches from your yard? The trees I have in my front/back yard that have suitable branches for small finches have a bunch of stuff growing on them. So I'm fearful of bringing nasties into my home and into their cage.

The wild manzanita branches I used in the past were collected 20 miles away from my home and I merely scrubbed them and washed with water. They were cleaner looking than the branches I have outside though.

Mine had some problems with them at first too. Eventually they got used to them, probably developing certain foot muscles to better grip them. I do think they prefer the dark manzanita to the lighter sandblasted ones though.