FINCHforum

I have been stressing about leaving on vacation. I will have a friend who will stop by and care for my birds. I knew I could not expect my friend to dole out the variety of food and supplements my birds are used to. I know they would survive for 10 days on just regular seed and water. They have come to expect the variety I give them daily.

I found these mini ice cure trays at the dollar store.
I have everything represented from kelp, egg food, sprouts, oyster shells, egg shells, charcoal, dried insect parts, dried greens, etc.

I covered each tray with "Press and Seal" by GLAD. A type of Saran wrap, and placed the trays in the freezer.

They still will not get fresh romaine or live meal worms but they should be happy.

Now all she has to do is give them fresh water and pull out one of these trays a day.

Ingenious!

You are very conscientious, and have beautiful birds by the way

Ooh! Clever you!
That's such a wonderful idea! I need to remember this!

Great idea! Yes, beautiful birds!!!

Wow very nice idea! Goin on vacay soon! This will be amazing

I so need to remember this for next time!!!

Very good idea.

Very clever!

Brilliant. When going on vacation and needing the birds to be looked after properly, a little invention and preparation goes a long way.

This is a timely post! My husband and I have to leave for a wedding in about a month and a half. We'll only be gone 4 days, but we are new to our area and don't know anyone really we can trust watching them. I'm curious - how long would you all leave your finches alone? We have deep dishes and plenty of water/food always available, but I'm worried it might be too long. Any input would be wonderfully helpful.

Oh and Sitting Duck - what type of finch is the white/striped one in the bottom right hand corner? They are all so beautiful!

That is one of my owl finches. They finally have eggs in the nest after nine months of sleeping in there. I thought they might be two males because of no eggs till now. They are very hard to sex. Upper middle is my Pintail Wydah. He is getting his mating colors and growing his long tail out. I hope he does not get too aggressive. When I got him last year he was ending his breeding season and was pretty mellow. I think they lay their eggs in the nest of orange cheeked wax bills. My OCWB have never made a nest. I hope they do not mess with the owl finches.

CharDeeMacDennis wrote: This is a timely post! My husband and I have to leave for a wedding in about a month and a half. We'll only be gone 4 days, but we are new to our area and don't know anyone really we can trust watching them. I'm curious - how long would you all leave your finches alone? We have deep dishes and plenty of water/food always available, but I'm worried it might be too long. Any input would be wonderfully helpful.

I do not know the answer. I guess if something went wrong then you know it was too long. I like to give fresh water daily. Sometimes every other day if I add a water cleanser to the water.
I would purchase vacation feeders. (I use them always for their regular food and use little dishes for their daily treats/extras).
Deep dishes will get a layer of husks that might block/prevent the birds from getting down to the fresh seeds. JMO. I think 4 days should be fine as the outside limit.

You can put extra sprays of millet in your cage. Laraine at ladygoudlian.com has great, very large sprays. https://ladygouldian.com/content/genuin ... yellow-box

Then you can get a vacation feeder.
https://ladygouldian.com/node/130

Then for water you can get the waterers. There are the large glass bottles like this that work great. They sell them many places but here is one. http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... atid=10194