FINCHforum

Please tell me everything about your birds.
Temper against own species
How do they do in mixed flight/aviary
What size cage/flight/aviary do you keep them in?
How many pairs?
What other birds are they together with?
What do you feed them with?
Can they be fine without insects etc? Just seed mix + greens and fruits?
Are they hardy or fragile?
What species are the best to keep with them? ( if you had a 60x30x35h flight )

Thanks for the answers.

KarenB has a pair of Lavenders and I believe Sally did at one time.

Wow, ok, lots of questions.

They do very well in my mixed flight.

My flight is a 4 foot cube with other African waxbill pairs: gold breasted, black capped, RCCB, RBFF. It is indoors.

Lavenders are curious about everything, active, peaceful, cute with great personality.

Males love building humongous nests for the object of their affection. They prefer building their own from scratch with cocoa fiber and the like, feathers, scraps of natural paper, excelsior, etc.

They seem hardy enough, though I lost one end of last year for unknown reasons, even after using medications. I don't know how they'd do in an outdoor aviary.

Mine eat anything I give them. They love live food but don't require it to live. I provide it because I try and give a large and varied diet, and I think it benefits them and keeps them entertained. I have hay on the bottom of my flight and all the waxbills like to forage for critters within it.

I would house them with other waxbills or by themselves, either way.

Hope this helps.

KarenB

Hi Karen.
Where have you been lately? Haven't run across you on the Forum lately. I hope all is well (?)

Regarding the Lavenders.... One day, one day.... I'll have some as well. I think they are amazingly pretty little birds.

~Elana~

metinemre wrote: Please tell me everything about your birds.
Temper against own species
How do they do in mixed flight/aviary
What size cage/flight/aviary do you keep them in?
How many pairs?
What other birds are they together with?
What do you feed them with?
Can they be fine without insects etc? Just seed mix + greens and fruits?
Are they hardy or fragile?
What species are the best to keep with them? ( if you had a 60x30x35h flight )

Thanks for the answers.

Merhabalar.

Beautiful, lovely birds with interesting behaviour that never showed any direct aggression against other species I housed them with.
However, when nesting season came, they kept destroying nests made by other birds, notably cordon bleues, so I have eventually had to remove them.
Pretty much all African finches need more live food than say societies and zebras and I always provide buffalo worms, and often ant puppae, too. I guess they would, at least for a while, survive (but definitely not breed successfully) on seeds and greens only, but if you can't feed them properly, wouldn't it be better to choose something else?

metinemre - I agree with the info from other members. I had a pair of Lavenders in a mixed flight [4½ feet wide by 2½ deep by 5 feet high] with Red Cheek Cordon Blues & Orange Cheek waxbills. They were never aggressive & loved building nests in a plant that was in the flight. They were 11 months when I got them & had them for 8 years.
Mary

w.l. wrote: Beautiful, lovely birds with interesting behaviour that never showed any direct aggression against other species I housed them with.
However, when nesting season came, they kept destroying nests made by other birds, notably cordon bleues, so I have eventually had to remove them.
Pretty much all African finches need more live food than say societies and zebras and I always provide buffalo worms, and often ant puppae, too. I guess they would, at least for a while, survive (but definitely not breed successfully) on seeds and greens only, but if you can't feed them properly, wouldn't it be better to choose something else?

My wife would kill me if i gave birds live food or bugs worms etc. Our cages are in living room and it would really cause problem if any of those small worms are tossed out and crawling on the carpet. We have green singers for some time now and they had couple of clutches and from first one we have a baby boy. Never gave them live food not even dried insects. Just greens, fruits boiled eggs and seed mix.
Not planning to let them breed for a year or two until we move to a larger house. Would they suffer somehow, a sickness etc if live food is missing from their diet? Is "live food missing from their diet" really considered "not feeding them properly"? Ofc i wouldn`t like that.

Green singers are totally different birds from waxbills, belonging to a different family, too. They are related to canaries.
I can't comment on keeping Levanders without live food. They love it and it's essential for rearing their young so I'd guess it is a part of "feeding them properly". As I had said, they may well survive without it, but I try to provide my birds more than just enough to survive on.
Of the estrilid finches, munias seem to need live food much less than African waxbills.

w.l.

Can you tell me some other species that would not require live food?
My short list was
lavenders
rc cb
bc cb
red bill fire finch
strawberry
greensingers (one pair in one of the cages)

i will have two large flight cages 60"x26"x30"h and two pairs in each cage

I owned them at one time... lovely birds, housed mine separately, avid builders... anything and everything was seen as nesting material. the nests were built out and extended to the point it it looked like it needed additional support in the front...give them timothy hay, long and short straight coco fiber and orchard grassed unlimited and they were happy. The nest pictured was actually built out much further after this was taken.

They love grass seeds, millet, dried and boiled grated eggs and greens.

They love baths, several times a day!

Extremely swift if they get loose in your bird room. delightful little bird

My cordon bleues and firefinches love live food even more than the Lavenders, however the strawberries seem to ignore it, at least when not breeding.
In general, African waxbills seem to be more insectivorous than Asian ones.

I just got news from home that my Lavender pair has, despite all odds, raised 3 chicks that fledged this morning!
I knew they had babies, but being in an overpopulated aviary full of 16 munias and 4 golden sparrows, all of which are larger than them, I had little hope they would raise them.
Lavenders are known as likely to stop feeding after a week or so even in the best conditions.

Gotta love my pair, can't wait to get home (another week or so ) to see the fledgelings.

That is terrific news, congratulations! They are not easy to breed, so you are doing something right.

I love lavenders. I use to have a pair and they were so sweet. I'm definently hoping to get another pair when I find them.