FINCHforum

Hello all! Newbie here. I have a couple of general questions for you all.

1. Do I need the sandpaper covers on the perches to help keep their nails trim? Right now I have just the plastic perches, but hoping to get some wood ones soon.

2. I have gravel in there to help them grind up food. Do they really need it? And it is not Finch specific gravel, I could not find any. It is for Parakeets.

3. There is a wire bottom on the cage that stands about a half inch above the actual bottom. Is that ok for them or should I take it out and just let them use the flat bottom of the cage? I have newspaper down.

And if there is anything general I should know, please feel free. Thanks a bunch everyone!! So glad I found this site!

Welcome! You will learn a lot here!

1. I wouldn't reccomened, sandpaper perches for your finches, the sandpaper is too harsh and can cause sores on the bottoms of their feet. I personally use natural branches, a little rough so they can keep their nails and beaks in check themselves. Occasionally, it may be needed to trim their nails yourself, but you can easily doe that with a pair of baby nail clippers and some good lighting.

2. Gravel, I feel is essential for them. It does help to digest food and is a good form of calcium and minerals for them. I get mine from a local bird farm and I know they use theirs for all of their birds.

3. I know some leave their wire grate in the bottom of their cage and have no problems, and then I have heard that sometimes there are incidents where the bird may get his leg hung up and that could be detrimental to them. I personally have the grate in mine because it is non-re moveable, BUT, I lay my newspaper on top of it so I don't run the risk of any leg injuries. A second concern, of no grate, is them eating seed on the bottom of cage as well as droppings, so you will need to make sure you keep up on the paper at the bottom. Most of us change the paper out everyday or every other to keep on top of this. Eating droppings could mean illness.

4. Also, you will want to make sure you have your birds in a room with sufficient lighting so they can regulate their days and nights according to sunrise and sunset, as well as seasons. If you choose ( not necessary unless as long as they have suffiecnt light) to put a light on their cage, make sure it is a full spectrum light and you can read more about that here:
http://www.finchniche.com/features_light.php

They also benefit from fruits and vegetables but be careful which your choose, some can make them sick.

Here is some info on that:
http://www.petuniversity.com/birds/cana ... inches.htm

I'm sure long time finch fanciers will come along and give you their two cents and advise. There is a ton of it. Enjoy your birds!!!

Good questions.

Tammie has already covered most of them quite completely, but I'd just like to add a bit on the gravel question. There is much confusion over the terms gravel and grit. Finches hull their seed, so they do not need gravel to grind up the seed in their crops. But they do need grit for the calcium and minerals it contains. One of the best sources of grit is oystershell grit. If you can't find it in a pet shop, feed stores will sell it for chickens. The grit for chickens may be a bit large, I have a mini food processor that grinds it up smaller.

Tammie and Sally covered it all really nicely.

The only thing I would add is concerning the sandpaper perches.

The main danger is that the sandpaper can injure their feet and cause infections called bumblefoot.

But, there's a trick that lets you avoid this and you still get the pedicure benefit of the sandpaper.

Simply cut the sandpaper perch sleeve so it's a tad bit more than a half circle -- like 3/5 of a circle. Then, use a non-toxic glue like Elmers to glue it to the bottom half of the perch. Wrap it with cellophane to ensure a good bond while it dries (then remove the cellophane.)

This keeps the foot on the smooth top part of the perch and the lower portion has the gritty sandpaper to file the nails. Works nicely.

We also have a pedi-perch with the top half smooth and the bottom half gritty. I don't recall whether we purchased it like that or made it ourselves by coating the top half with Elmer's glue or similar.

Also make sure you have lots of different perch sizes. That's where natural branches can be lovely. They can develop foot problems if they only have one size perch.

I also have a grate cage bottom in 2 of my 3 cages.
I've removed it in one of the cages when i had babies who were falling out of the nest. I noticed they started spending lots more time on the ground, hopping around and foraging the little bits that got tossed out of the food bowl. So I left the grate out.

I tried to cover the grate in my other 2 cages with non-removable grate bottoms, but they're twits and they'll pull up the paper for nesting. It makes a mess, so they get the normal grates.

It's also more conducive to eating their favorite fruits and veggies. They pull the little chunks off the dish, but they don't lose them through the grate. It lets me use a smaller dish in that cage.

Thank you all very much for the information! I am really learning a lot!!

Some great advice up above. Only thing I would add is about the grate. We have a custom built flight that intentionally doesn't have a bottom grate. It was built so that one of the opaque, plexiglass shields that goes in a 2x4 florescent light fixture will fit in the bottom. All of the food/water dishes sit on the bottom of the flight, on the piece of plexiglass. We did this because, in the wild, almost all finches are ground feeders. Obviously they will eat out of a cup hanging on the side of the cage, but it isn't their natural way of foraging for food.

We take the plexiglass out every few days, hose it off, and slide it back in. Each Saturday morning I take it out, hose it down and wipe it down with a mild bleach solution, allow it to air dry, then hose/wipe it down again to get any residual bleach off. Super easy to keep clean and cheap to replace ($4 at Home Depot).

D

I leave the grate in my cage, but put enough carefresh bedding in the tray so that it it goes right to below the grate. Mine don't seem to mind it and often steal some of the bedding for their nest.