FINCHforum

Hi there, I'm faily new with finches and I have 2 owl finches and one of them seems to be stuck during his molting.

The one I am speaking of is around 4 months old so I readed his molting should be complete or almost by now, but it's not the case. I checked out a little what could generate this problem.

-Temperature: I don't think so, it's fairly warm and dry.

-Disease: I don't think so either, the little guy/girl although he/she is all puffy, is incredibly active and loves exercising and flying around endlessly.

-Stress: Well maybe, I don't know, what could generate such intense stress to him? The other one is actually quite fine.

-Nutrition: I think it's the most probable here, the lil' guy refuses to eat anything else than his every day bird seeds and milet. Alive or not, he doesn't want insects at all and although the other bird uses the squid bone, this one seems to have no interest at all in it.

-Breeding: Well, for some reasons he keeps trying over and over again to go on top of the other bird even though I'm pretty sure this other one is a male due to how loud he can sing or ''meow'' sometimes. And they both seems to like their nest or at least they sleep in it, but the 4 months old one with molting problems often seems to attempt to tear it apart during the day.

Any one had any similar problems or know more about this than me?

Dokh

Although I don't have Owls, I'll just go by general advice on molting birds.

First of all, sometimes siblings take their own time to finish molting. They don't always finish at the same time. I've got 4 sibling Gouldians, from the same clutch. One has finished molting weeks ago. Two are almost done, and one is just more or less starting. So go figure.

Regarding the diet:
I would offer hard boiled egg, either grated or put through a garlic press. Crumble some spray millet on it and toss it with a fork. Offer this and no other seeds for about half an hour, when you know they are hungry. I think he will eat. If not, leave it longer, until he at least tries some. If he eats it, you can add a bit of pulverized freeze dried meal worms into the mix as well. Protein, is very important in growing new feathers.

As to cuttle bone:
What I do is grate it, and mix it into their grit. I also grate iodine block and mineral block and mix it all together into their grit. I measure about a teaspoon full and spread it on the floor of the flight, so that they can pick and choose. I also add crushed cooked egg shells to this mix. They eat them like potato chips, and it gives them extra calcium.

How about veggies, do you offer greens at all? Kale, spinach, romaine, carrot greens, grated carrots, beet greens, corn, parsley, chopped apple, cucumber, beet greens, swiss chard etc. Very good for them.

Good luck, and please let us know how it goes.

~Elana~

I haven't tried veggies yet, but will certainly do and try pretty much everything you mentioned.

Thank you very much for your answer.

Lovezebs has already answered your questions, but I wanted to welcome you to the forum! There's lots of good reading at www.finchinfo.com, where you will find many articles on diet, housing, and especially the Owl finch. If you put your general location in your profile, it makes it easier to answer locale-specific questions later on.

Thanks for the welcome and the information site.

Oh and I completely forgot to mention the hygiene, they literally refuse to bathe and I have no idea why.

Dokh That's a little strange, as finches LOVE To bathe... mine when they see one in, the rest of them come flying down, and start doing that shake thing before they even get in the water... it's really cute to see 6 birds try to fit into one little bath...especially when 4 of them are still babies...cutest thing, and makes me crack up...anyway as for your problem. I'm pretty sure Owls are like other finches, and should LOVE to bathe. I've heard on here a few times depending on your location (which i'm not sure about the water where you are but...) I've heard people say that their water isn't good... so it's also not good for the birds, and believe it or not, they would know this (before you would probably) i don't know if it's a smell, or instinct they have or what, but I have read in a few places that people have to treat their tap water before giving it to the birds. Just to see, try giving them like a name brand bottled water for bath water, and make sure it's Very warm. see if that makes a difference... cuz they should not only WANT to bathe, they should LOVE bathing!!! (again, i don't have Owls, but I'm pretty sure they are bathers, like the rest of the finches) also try using something different like if you are using a certain kind of bird bath, honestly get a shallow tupperware/or rubbermaid square shallow dish and put water in it. It could be they don't like the actual bath itself, or it could be the water, let us know how it goes, though, keep us posted and good luck!

On reading your post the first thing that i think of is the nest box, birds can still breed before finishing moult, because your owls have access to a nest box my guess would be that they went into breeding mode causing a stalled moult, remove nest box and it should resume moult in a few weeks.

Smurf wrote:

Well it might have been that, little did we know before last week, his cage companion was a female (which we thought was a male) that got eggbound. But hurray she's in super shape now, those calcium + D3 boosts do wonders, she went in the nest layed the egg and then threw it out of the nest, that was funny to watch. And then young cock started to get more color in his feathers and slowly a slight blue tint on the beak, but sadly he broke his leg 3 days ago -_- , I swear I'm eager to get more experienced and stop worrying like that ^^