FINCHforum

HELLO EVERYONE.
I have just joined this forum as I need some advice as I am having problems with my avery.
I have had my large avery for about 3 years now and for the first two, everything went really well. This year has been a disaster.
First of all, back in about the beginning of March, I accidentally let all my finches out, except 6 birds. I lost about 20, (don't ask!).
I re-stocked with four pairs of zebra finches-orange cheeks , 2 diamond doves and 4 black cheek zebras, all from private breeders.
One female black cheek zebra died within a couple of days for no apparent reason. Over the next about 2-3 weeks, I gradually lost most of the four pairs of orange cheeks.
I took the whole avery to bits and scrubbed and discenfected it and threw everything away that could be replaced.
This seemed to do the trick. A couple of months passed and I started to get babies, 11 in total in 3 different nests.
Gradually, this month, all but four of the babies have died. Some died in the nest before they had fledged but most were out and about and just starting to feed themselves.
I thought I had hit on the cause of the problem, I have 2 canaries that have been in the avery right from the start. They have never been any problem before but my husband caught one attacking a young bengalese finch this week, it was pinning it down and ripping out its feathers.
I rang a lady who takes unwanted birds and she came and collected them for me 2 days ago. She said that they were both female and frustrated at not having their own babies.
I thought that this was the cause of all my problems and then this morming I went out to my avery and found another finch dead. This one was an adult, but not old.
Has any one got any ideas? They always die at night, I find them in the morning every time. Surely if it was a disease I would have lost all the birds? I seem to go for a week or so, think everything is ok, and then another one dies. They die one at a time. I thought that perhaps something was spooking them at night, but I don't know what. We are in an area with no cats and as we are in England, we dont have snakes or anything like that.
Sorry to waffle on, but if anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them. Its very upsetting and frustrating and if I could find out what is causing it, perhaps I could stop it.
Thank you!

any sign of either rats or mice?

Some years it's as if your birds have a death wish....
You sound like you've done all the right things with disinfecting etc.If it's not mice,rats,or cats,are the youngsters feeding themselves ok before the parents go to nest again?.Are you providing the young birds with any soak seed that they can eat easily?
There can be so many different things here...it's not easy to pinpoint the problem.
Paul.

I have seen one tiny mouse outside the avery, the dog normally sees it off. There is no evidence of any inside the avery and the bottom and all gaps are boarded and wired so I don't think rats could get in. I have been giving the babies and adult birds egg food mixed with a little water.The first lot that died and the one today were all adult so I really don't get it. Thank you very much for your quick replies. I will keep an eye out more closely for vermin.

Could be that a virus has spread in your new birds...just hope it has come to an end now.Without all manner of post mortems you may never know.
Make sure your seed is kept dry and safe from vermin too.
Paul.

Just out of interest, how would mice kill a finch and would there be any evidence of this on the bird?

It has been known, and obviously the bird would be in a hell of a state...the main danger from mice is the contamination of seed with urine.
Paul.

Welcome to the forum and so for all your losses. I dont know if this would hurt them but you mentioned that you added water to the eggfood and i was thinking maybe it got molding or something and thats what causes the deaths.

Hmm. I don't think it can be mice then. I keep my egg food indoors and my seed in a metal can. The birds are all untouched when I find them too. Not a mark on them. I only ever put out enough egg food for the birds to have in one sitting so it doesn't have time to go mouldy as they eat it straight away. Its kept sealed indoors. Thank you very much for all your suggestions, I don't suppose I will ever find out.

As I said earlier ...without expensive post mortems I don't think you will.
It's more likely a virus of some description...just hope it has burned itself out.
Paul.

I dont know if I dare to say it but havnt had any deaths for two weeks now so am wondering if it was the canaries after all.

Keep ya fingers crossed...
Paul.

Paul,
Ive searched everywhere,do you think it would be ok to put cobnut branches with the leaves in my avery?

The store wher I purchased my birds has problems with canaries plucking diamond doved/zebra dove tail and wing feathers. The owner said that when canaries come into breeding condition they look for things to construct a nest and in the absence of coco fibre, straw etc they pluck feathers from other birds. Apparently zebra finches do the same.

I've never had zebras do it but my poor little bengalese baby still looks like it has been electrocuted where the canaries held it down and had a go at it.They broke its beak too so I had to do a careful bit of trimming so that it could eat.They had plenty of nesting materials too.The other birds are much happier and noisier now they have gone, I had noticed that the aviery was very quiet.