FINCHforum

Curious how everyone’s breeding is going so far, have you had a lot of success or not ?

I’ve found at the moment which is strange I keep getting a ratio of 3:1 male and female out of my clutches on average

Fraza

I've still only got males, so this year was not a success. When fall comes around and the weather's cooler, I'll have to ship some Euros over via airline. Been talking about it for 2-3 years, but never really gotten around to it. Don't think I want my fawns in my breeding population though, since they're a bit more nervous, have nails that grow too fast, and have messier tails than my chocolates.

Are you breeding indoors or in particularly cloudy weather? Birds with low UV exposure tend to have far more male offspring.

Icearstorm yeah they have a see through roof in the aviary but the weather has been very cloudy and dull, and I’m breeding some very nice selfs at the moment but I’m unsure how you ship them

Here’s one of my own bred

Very pretty birds!

wildbird thanks !

Overly successful, I'd say. I raise Canaries in central Kentucky USA. There isn't a big market here, and I'd originally decided to not pair up birds this year. But....

I put 5 pair together, and got 47 young birds out of two rounds. I'm still not crowded, since I have a huge aviary. But they sure are eating a lot.

Dave: Have any pictures? I'm still trying to convince my husband that a single male Canary would be 'No trouble at all... charming personality...gorgeous song....what's not to like?'
Ever hopeful.

Fraza: Beautiful bird. Is that the larger Euro variety of Society finch?

Dave that’s amazing especially the fact that it was your first time breeding to, try local pet shops that’s where I sell to ( but just make sure they look after the animals and don’t just see them as a product) I would love to see some pictures to !!!!

@FinchLady hi, and thanks yeah the mum bird is one of the good euro so all her chicks come out like this and I bred her to a grey self who is considerably big to so yeah !

Fraza, it is a long while since the first time I bred Canaries--about 25 years with them.

These are the things that I do that I think are contributing to good breeding success:

***I offer a lot of kinds of food, and let the birds choose what they want. This includes boiled egg, all the greens they want, several kinds of seed, and sunflower chips. I almost never add vitamins. It is amazing how they change their food preferences depending on the season.

***Lots of room. A single pair breeding cabinet is 48" long, 24" deep and 20" tall (123 cm long, 61 cm deep and 51 cm tall). When the birds aren't in breeding season, they have an aviary 16' x 7', 7' tall (4.9 meters x 2.1 meters x 2.1 meters tall). With additional outside cages so they can get direct sunlight.

I'll post a few pictures on a separate post.

Fraza

Nice bird. European lines do seem to be higher quality than American Euro lines in terms of markings. What are the Euros' temperaments like? My mixed birds are fairly high-strung.

Dave yeah show us some pictures, and I give mine a similar diet however I’m not sure the size of the aviary but I allow them to just colony breed all year round but I put them in pairs first

@Icearstorm thanks I really like ur euro one the all black self, and within the temperaments if your talking about aggression I find that they are really fright compare to the others, for example when the zebra try and push them from the seed they will fly away whereas coco and my pieds seem to peck them back then carry on eating.(wether this is just a confidence I don’t know)

Fraza

Huh. I've had an American self that would beak fence with the Java finch, but the others seem more passive. I have had Tacocat chase other birds away from his nest and eggs, although he wasn't aggressive once the eggs hatched for whatever reason. None of my birds are pure Euro; they tend to be closer to the Americans as far as conformation goes, but somewhere in between when it comes to markings.

Icearstorm it’s crazy I think it’s more based on how they was bred, like I find that aviary birds that I’ve been aviary bred are more aggressive or tend to stand up for there selves more than caged bred