FINCHforum

I received a pair of society finches on Saturday. They have been eating finch seed mix just find and drinking water. They enjoy pecking at and eating leaves of Romaine that I hang through their cage as well as millet. They seem happy and settled. I can approach the cage and talk to them and they will fly to the front and hang on the cage wall to look at me LOL On Monday, I added a covered bird bath. It is the kind that attaches at a bottom door so that the bird goes through the open door into the bath. It's large and shallow and has a bright yellow bottom. I put a perch right at the opening. They will not go near it. It's been 4 days. Do I just need to give them more time or are they just not going to like that kind of bath?? I've seen one of them take a bath in the small covered water dish (for drinking) once.
Next, question...I decided I wanted to add another food bowl to offer egg food and other fresh food treats. I went with a small stainless steel bowl that clips on the side of the cage and I put it down low near their other food dish. The bowl itself doesn't have a small perch on it like their regular food dish so I put it next to the lowest perch in their cage. Once again, like the bath, they won't go near it. They will get on the perch about a couple of inches away and look at it but that's it. Do I need to give them more time? Will they sit on the bowl and lean into it to eat?

I just want to make sure I'm not doing something wrong.

With the hang-on bath, one thing you can try is to leave out the water and put a small piece of spray millet inside. This will tempt them to go inside the bath, and after a few days of that, you can start using it as a bath again.

As far as the extra food dish, they will use it eventually. It doesn't matter if they have a perch or not, they will perch on the side of the bowl, they will jump down inside the bowl. Again, you could try putting a small piece of spray millet, or even just fill it with seed for now, till they get used to it.

Societies are usually much more relaxed about trying new things, these two seem to be much shyer, so I'd just keep working on it and give them time.

They may or may not get to like the covered bath if they've never seen one before. Give 'em time.
You might also try a small shallow dish of bath water on the floor. They may take to that quicker. I use the cheap plastic ice cream dishes from a dollar store. Three for a buck.

The shiny steel may be putting them off. Again, time will tell. They should get curious or hungry.

I have a bird bath in my cage at the bottom, but they will only bath in their water dish. Societies are silly at times.

I have that same bath and mine took to it right away, however I had to "train" them to use different feeding dishes when I put them all in my indoor corner aviary. They will come around and spray millet is a great training tool. I tried switching the bath like you have with a different kind that keeps the water in better. My societies thought I gave them a nest box and started to stuff nesting material in the bath, with water in it.

I wound up drying out the new bath and let them have it to nest in. Meanwhile I switched back to the yellow bath like yours and they used it, again as a bath. Given I have room for it, I purchased a hanging cuban bath for the aviary and then took away their yellow bath. Today, they started getting curious about the cuban bath and eventually started using it now. Societies are curiously stupid at times. They dont know what they want to do with what they discover, its quite comical. Try the millet idea. I like it.!

Tried the millet idea one day with the stainless steel bowl. Totally worked. Yesterday they were perched on the bowl eating their egg food and spinach. Dried out the yellow bath yesterday and put millet in there...nothing yesterday. Today, we came home to find pieces of millet in the bath. So they were either in there or eating it from the door when we weren't looking.

Tish wrote: I have a bird bath in my cage at the bottom, but they will only bath in their water dish. Societies are silly at times.

That's why I use only silos for water, LOL! Much easier on everyone all around.

If I go too long without putting their bath in the cage, they will still splash all the water out of the silo to express their displeasure. So I only use SMALL silos for the finches and the larger ones for the parakeets, who are dirty birds and so far have refused all bathing opportunities.

I think maybe they are not the smartest birds LOL. They poop in their food and water far more than my parrots ever did even with them moved away from any perches, so I put some "outside" bird feeders in (i have a big cage) and they just can't seem to figure out what those are for..

Chihuahua

I had the same issue with my society finches; I put a hopper feeder in and they didn't eat from it for close to two days. They were all fluffed up and I was afraid they were starving, so I held one up to the feeder and put its beak in the food until it started eating... Looking back, some spray millet attached to the feeder probably could have gotten them to figure it out with less stress, but what I did worked, so I guess I can't complain.