Zebra Finches Died

[Birdpoppy]

I am new to the forum and I tried looking up why my Zebra Finches have died.I Purchased the birds from a couple that said they travel a lot and they could not keep them. They said they were over a year old and had a set of babies during the summer. I purchased them and after getting them to my house I transfered them to my wife's greenhouse for a temperary stay until I built their aviary. I was going to keep them in a large outdoors avairy. They done good for several weeks and then one day my wife told me something was wrong with them and when I went to check they both were dead. Can you help me on what may have happened with both of them, because I want to purchase some more for the aviary?
Thanks.

[Sally]

It is almost always impossible to diagnose over the internet, even avian veterinarians can't always tell why birds died. Were the birds in a cage in your wife's greenhouse? What temperatures in the greenhouse? Any chemicals/pesticides in use in the greenhouse? Perhaps with a series of answers, we can at least try to pinpoint the problem.

Welcome to the forum, though it is under sad circumstances. There's lots of good reading at www.finchinfo.com, where you'll find many articles on finch care. If you put your general location in your profile, it helps us to answer questions. I'm assuming you are in the southern hemisphere if you are thinking of moving birds at this time into an outside aviary.

[Birdpoppy]

They were in the large cage I had purchased with the birds. The weather here has been around 40 at night and 65 during the day and I also had a heater on them the whole time. One was dead in the feed trough and the other was dead laying on it's side on the bottom of the cage. They were O.K. Thursday evening when I checked on them. I did not check on them on Friday evening and Saturday morning they were both dead. I don't think the temps had any burden on them. I raise a lot of other different birds, but this is the first cage birds I have tried to raise. I have doves, button quails, fantail pigeons, peacocks, chickens, pheasants, and guineas. I was going to build an outdoor aviary for the finches and some parakeets. I guess this is a trial and error lesson. Thanks for the info.

[Babs _Owner]

Birdpoppy

Did the couple you bought them from keep them outside? If they were kept indoors in a controlled climate before you got them, the huge temperature change they were immediately presented with may have caused the problem(?)

[lovezebs]

Birdpoppy

There could be many reasons as to why your Zebras died, and very difficult to pin point what happened without all the facts.

You need to look at:
Diet
Environment
Temperatures
Air quality

Diet: A good quality Finch seed mix, fresh greens, vegetables and some fruit, fresh water, bird grit, cuttle bone, hard boiled eggs, bird vitamins in drinking water, and spray millet.

Environment: Would have to do with the enclosure itself. Did they have sunlight, access to shade, too much humidity, drafts.

Temperatures: Although Zebras are hardy little birds, a lot depends on what they were used to before coming to live with you. Most Finches, enjoy temperatures of around 20 to 22 degrees Celsius. They can be acclimated to lower temperatures, but it has to be done gradually.

Air quality: The air quality in a green house, can be iffy for finches. Sprays might be used, residual pesticides can linger in the air and be deadly.


So all these things can be contributers to all sorts of problems that would cause illness and death.

By the way, just a quick word of caution : if you are thinking of building an aviary, Finches and Hookbills should not be housed together. Hookbills can very easily injure and kill Finches.

Hope this I formation was helpful.

[Birdpoppy]

Thanks for all of the information Sally, Babs and Lovezebs. I have been looking at different sites on raising them, but I did'nt expect what had happened. It caught me off guard. I guess I will wait until the spring time to get some more of them. In the meantime I will build my aviary and it will be ready for them. I will keep reading and studying about them and maybe I will have better luck during the spring. Thanks again.

[Malti]

just to add to what has been said already, do you have cats or other animals that might access the greenhouse? could have scared them to death

[lovezebs]

Birdpoppy

Wishing you the very best of luck in the future, and welcome to the Forum.

Would love to see pictures of your aviary as it progresses.

By the way, sorry you lost your Zebras. It's difficult, especially when we don't know what happened.

[Sally]

As others have said, it is very difficult to pinpoint what may have gone wrong, but a big change in temperature could have been one culprit. I'm so sorry you had to go through this with your new birds.

Since you are in the Atlanta area, you could work on the aviary during the winter. You wouldn't want to put birds out in an aviary during winter anyway, as they need to be acclimatized gradually, unless they came from an outdoor aviary. You can get your aviary finished, and then be ready to get new birds in the late spring, when temperatures are more moderate. Atlanta has multiple marts during the year, both in Norcross and in Forest Park.