FINCHforum

Donna... some ideas for your new aviary addition







These guys have the aviary for the winter....minus any nest I gathered them from several holding flights, breeders from their cages and the old retired timers and set them semi-free
Some will be sold at the bird fair eventually. In the meantime they are having a blast.

MY GOODNESS!!! I will keep that in mind......

That is alot of zebs in one place. Great pictures Candace.

Candace save the white ones for me, and the one 2nd from the right and the one in the middle........

Absolutely wonderful to see soo many flocking together.

Gorgeous, simply gorgeous!

Everyone sing..."why do birds suddenly appear, everytime you are near......"

That is an amazing flock!

Candace,

Those are wonderful pictures! I love seeing them free like this!

I've 3 pairs currently.One pair looks eager to nest.

Candace, do you have any aggression with all those zebras?

No aggression. There are no nest and lots of feed dishes. Also the space is 9 foot high, 8 foot wide, and 16 foot deep.
Many limbs, plants, etc. Zebras are truly flocking birds. I believe aggression comes from to small of spaces, competioion for nesting site, food and the such.
When I am holding the young in flight cages(after breeding in individual cages) there will be a pecking order wher a few can get bossy. I try and put females in one flight and males in another flight this cuts the need for competition of the males quickly. No females...squabbles. Now that they are all together if one male becomes possesive then there is plenty of space and other females fpr the 'loser' male to go to
These guys are content to preen each other not pluck

Would have to agree with your observations Candace. In our experience, Zebra's temperament can very much be affected by food, environment, etc. We've had two and three couples raise clutches in cages together with very little problems. It almost seems to us like they do better in flock situations that allow their familial traits to come out. Although like you pointed out, with most wild animals there is a pecking order and establishing that can get messy sometimes. But after that, everything is usually honky dory.

While I enjoyed looking at your pictures though I have to think that has got to be one very noisy aviary

I have 2 male orange weavers in there and they make more noise than anyone. They also rule the roost.

Wow they must be loud. I know how noisy a room full of about 50 Zebras can be. Still, wouldn't trade that chorus for anything. Actually miss the peepage when I'm away for the better part of the day.

I guess what is loud and noise to one is music to anothers ears
They are much quieter outside than in a closed room. I guess because of the echoe and acoustics. I remember at the petstore they were much louder sounding. Also constantly sounding the loud alert call everytime someone moved.
My guys don't get disturbed too much... I can usually only get the rapid alarm beep, beep, beep when I instigate it by making my call first. Then half the time they even ignore that.

Candace, it is funny that you said you can get the birds going by sounding off first. I make the meeee noise and all the owls join in and keep going. We just laugh it is so cute.