FINCHforum

For all of you that followed my story last weekend - about banding my baby Green Singing Finch - here he is, as of this morning:



He is out of the nest. perching on his own, and he can even fly! In fact, he is about the size of his parents now, except that he has a short tail (I'm calling him a "he" but he could be a "she" - won't know for a few months I guess!). And NOTE: his legband is still on !!!

I am assuming that his parents are still feeding him but I haven't seen them do it lately. His father seemed to want him out of the nest so maybe they are planning to breed again? In any case, I'm still putting fresh eggfood in the cage, with Miracle Meal and live mealworms - all this in addition to seed mix, soaked and sprouting millet spray, dry egg food, and salad greens. Hopefully, I've got all bases covered on the food!

Oh my, he looks so handsome! Thanks for sharing a pic. How old is he again? I tried feeding mine the freeze dried mealworms but they didn't like it. I guess they have preferences as well.

He's lookin' good! That's a great picture.

So nice to hear he is doing well and you got him banded.

I have yet to do a banding...I am still trying to get up the courage....but I haven't figured out how many pieces of chocolate it takes to get ready.

What kind of plant is on the left side of the cage...is it real?

Cutee patootee! A young'un and already he looks like he has attitude.

Oh - he is a very fine bird indeed! He looks so refined and grown up from the last photo. I saw Green Singing finches at a pet store this evening. They seemed to be the larger variety IMHO. I had seen some smaller ones at a different pet store a couple of weeks ago. Does his daddy sing? I hear they have a very pretty song.
Thanks for sharing the photo!

I'm guessing my baby Green Singer is between 3 - 4 weeks old already.

The plants over, alongside, and in the cage are regular plastic plants purchased at Michaels (the big craft store). I wonder if they made the parents feel safe enough to breed?


His father does sing.

As for the banding, I was able to practice on 7 baby Ringneck Doves before this finch and they are much easier!

So far, he mostly just sits alot. His parents are much more active. They might even be courting for the next batch. This time, I'm going to write down when the mother starts incubation so I can estimate the babie's ages better.

Some things I learned about Green Singers: Although you can see the hen incubating, you hear and see very little else when they have babies. They are very quiet babies - you don't hear much of anything when they are feeding them - if I hadn't reached in the nest to band him last weekend, I wouldn't have noticed any babies until he left the nest (although, he was a single baby and could crouch down better I guess).

As for baby food, the parents took my home-made egg food (mashed hard-boiled egg with corn meal, vitamins, and Miracle Meal) and live mealworms - and possibly some dry egg food and dry insect mix. They also had millet spray, finch seed mix, greens and sprouted seed available. But I never actually saw them feed the baby so I'm not sure what they fed it versus what they ate themselves.