FINCHforum

Not sure if I should have put this here or in Housing.

I'm going to be able to go away on a dream vacation for 2 weeks in October - to Italy and Spain!

As excited as I should be, all I am doing is worrying about my birds. My daughter has become quite adept at caring for them due to helping me out, hearing my zillions of bird stories, being around during emergencies, etc. I know they would be in good hands for her caring for them while I'm away. The problem is I feel it is a tremendous amount of work to maintain them. I currently have 44 birds spread over fifteen 30x18x18 cages, and believe me, it's a LOT of upkeep.

I'm trying to find suggestions for types of feeders/waterers that might have to be refilled less often to take a little bit of the burden off of her shoulders while I'm gone. I know sometimes I read here about people with aviaries talking about they haven't seen their birds in a few days - what types of things do you use to carry them over food/water-wise for that length of time?

I currently have to refill their water at least twice per day (using tube waterers, bath basins, and open water containers). Their seed I usually refill from scratch every other day but have to top off, shake up/remove hulls on a daily basis.

Any suggestions? The last thing I want to do on my trip is spend it worrying that I'm overburdening my daughter or that my birds are not getting enough of what they need.

I am still a newbie with my 7 finches, but I feel that I may be able to answer your question. My birds are in my school library. I am on summer break until next week, so I am not with the birds daily. I go to school on Mondays and Thursdays to take care of the birds right now. When school starts, I will be with them every weekday. There is no one at school on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so I make sure that they have plenty of food and water for the weekend. I have 3 water bottles, not the tube kind but not huge either. The water drains into these little tubs that are part of the bottle and has a perch attached. I tried to find a picture online but couldn't find one. I use a small wildbird feeder that hangs in the cage (I don't feed them wild bird food though). The small hulls fall through the little holes in the bird feeder so it doesn't get clogged up. It works great for those 3 days when I can't get to them. I also hang millet sprays for them on Thursdays. I hope this helps. Congratulations on your upcoming vacation by the way and I am sure that your daughter will be fine with the birds, so enjoy yourself.

For water, I have some of the "bottle drinker footies" from:
https://ladygouldian.com/node/136

they attach to most glass (beer ) bottles. I put some sparkle in there to keep any bacteria growth at a minimum. It wouldn't be ideal to keep the bottles entirely full if you just have a few finches in each cage, so maybe you could fill them about half way and change the water ever couple days to make sure it's fresh.

As for seed, you can go to the wild bird section at walmart and they should have these plastic feeders for 99 cents. They will stay full for a few days, depending on the amount of birds.

You may be able to get some timers for the lights also if your birds are use to your routine.

Enjoy your trip, it's really beautiful over there!

When I go away I use an outdoor wild bird feeder for the seed and a waterer that chickens use. There are an assortment of waterers but something like these, http://www.flemingoutdoors.com/powa.html