Breeding Shaft-Tails in cages

[Ziggy]

They are doing really well, I have been keeping the parents well fed and the babies seem to grow soooo fast. There are 4 little fluff balls!

Yesterday I took one out for a few seconds to peak at it... The are so precious! Here it is 17 days old

And a link to the other pictures. http://www.finchforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=35801

[Stuart whiting]

Nice one mate,

I don't know if it made much difference with your birds but generally long tailed and hecks grass finches don't necessarily need live food to rear their young as its not really necessary,

However one thing I noticed that you didn't mention was the use of soaked seed, most Australian finches will thrive on this when rearing their young as the birds are to young to eat straight hard seed,

It's certainly not to late to try feeding this and may help the birds when they fledge and become weaned,

You've done very well so far and congratulations to you, well done

[Ziggy]

Thanks Stuart, yes I read they don't need worms, but my pair choose them before everything else so I keep offering them. They grab them and do a whole swinging, banging and flipping routine with them on the floor of the cage even though for safety all the heads are already off. And yup, I have soaked some seeds for them, even soaked a millet branch a bit before putting it in. They love the egg food too, I have two different dishes on the floor of the cage one plain for finches and one with added bugs.... They both go down pretty fast.

[Stuart whiting]

Thanks Stuart, yes I read they don't need worms, but my pair choose them before everything else so I keep offering them. They grab them and do a whole swinging, banging and flipping routine with them on the floor of the cage even though for safety all the heads are already off. And yup, I have soaked some seeds for them, even soaked a millet branch a bit before putting it in. They love the egg food too, I have two different dishes on the floor of the cage one plain for finches and one with added bugs.... They both go down pretty fast.

Perfect mate,

All seems good,

I also soak millet sprays aswell as the seed, I supply a proprietary egg food kept moist with a very generous amount of liquid honey and with grated / liquidised carrot and broccoli to the mix