Location, location, location . . .

[Tigg]

Tigg

I love those. I have two of those I am converting to a double flight.

Tigg

A better option would be to just get a larger flight to start with.

One of mine:

Okay, so I 'quoted' all three of you to be sure you'd all see this.

Having a completely free weekend, I came home Friday night and started looking around at my place. The struggle of trying to come up w/a cage for my buffet has been becoming bigger than I ever intended, and I've also been overthinking this whole thing. I like simple. And I got an idea:

Why not just rearrange?

It took about a few hours and trying different configurations, but the dining room set up is now in the actual dining room and, well . . . I think you'll dig the result and what it means cage wise:

I now have a very different floor plan (which, btw, I absolutely love the openness this created) to place a full size cage, on a stand, on wheels.

So now, we're in a whole different ballgame, as far as cage size, number of birds and options go. I'll be good to go in ordering the cage in about three weeks and now at least I/we should have a much simpler time w/a choice of one. I'm diggin' the one you posted, Sojourner, via Amazon, and leaning towards that.

The question that comes up for me then is, what's my next step(s) until I get the cage in? Along with buying a Dustbuster vaccuum. ( @ Sojourner)

I'm thinking keep studying and reading, along with taking a trip or three to the local bird shop I'd mentioned earlier, start talking with them, getting to know them and such; start building that relationship.

As the birds themselves go, I'm still sticking with Societies. I'm thinkin' I'd want to top out at 3 pair / 6 birds.

Talk me to me guys - whaddya' think?

(And thanks beyond measure for walking me through this whole beginning w/the hobby! I am so stoked about making this happen and adopting these birds, it's gonna' be a great adventure!).

[w.l.]

It all sounds fine.
Big cage, easily housing 6 Societies.
If you want to breed them though, housing single pairs by themselves tends to work better.
Mind you, I would probably rather choose 3 pairs of different species rather than an all-Society flock, but this is of course a matter of personal taste.

[Sheather]

That sounds like a good plan for society finches.
For the most enjoyable setup with the least worry, get six males. Then give them some nests, and watch them build and rearrange them endlessly. Males are easy to pick out if you only take the ones which are puffed up, swaying side to side and singing in the store.

I've had lots of societies over the past few years and they're interesting birds with a lot of character and which have very little fear of people. With some work, you can get them to eat out of your hand. They also appreciate some time to fly out of the cage and will put themselves back on their own.

[Tigg]

That sounds like a good plan for society finches.
For the most enjoyable setup with the least worry, get six males. Then give them some nests, and watch them build and rearrange them endlessly. Males are easy to pick out if you only take the ones which are puffed up, swaying side to side and singing in the store.

I've had lots of societies over the past few years and they're interesting birds with a lot of character and which have very little fear of people. With some work, you can get them to eat out of your hand. They also appreciate some time to fly out of the cage and will put themselves back on their own.

I was actually planning on making it a 'frat house' - all malles. I knew about the singing, but not about the other traits you mentioned - thanks for that, Sheather.

I thought I read somewhere (can't remember where) that w/all males, nests were a no-no OR to get several; that they'd go at it over who got the prime real estate, nest wise. Not the case? Would 1 nest per be the best set up or just do like two or three?

I also read that if not interested in breeding (I'm not), basket nests were the go to instead of boxes. (Is it just me or is there some conflicting info out there, from website to website, occasionally?)

These birds'll have to be happy w/styaing in-cage. In the pic you might notice Buddy, my nutball canine. He's ridiculously smart and trainable, which I'll do some work with him about the birds (I don't anticipate any probs), but letting them out would probably not be in their best interest.

[Tigg]

It all sounds fine.
Big cage, easily housing 6 Societies.
If you want to breed them though, housing single pairs by themselves tends to work better.
Mind you, I would probably rather choose 3 pairs of different species rather than an all-Society flock, but this is of course a matter of personal taste.

I decided early on that breeding wouldn't really be feasible or an interest for me, wI, thus the choice to go all male.

From everything I've read, I'm also pretty good with keeping it an all Society gaggle. I've read enough about the different varieties, that they're looking like the best pick for my environment and their best set up.

Just wanna' keep this really simple, as an entry into keeping finches. Down the road, things might change.

[Sheather]

Put three nests, but most likely they'll all use one.
Society finches are a peaceful species, with zebras or something else, you can sometimes get birds that don't wanna share and beat eachother up with nests around. Very unlikely with this species.

[Sojourner]

Tigg

Start with just the one nest. As long as they are all males - and please be patient when watching for the amazing pear-shaped warblers amongst the society hoards to make sure of this - they will most likely all sleep in the same nest anyway. If there is squabbling, add another nest, but I bet you'll never see that with an all male flock. And don't worry if one sleeps on top of the nest once in awhile - that's fine. Before I got smart and removed the nest from the cage, mine would do that once in awhile for whatever reason. I've just never seen societies behave territorially over nests in the absence of breeding pairs.

I'm not sure what to tell you about quarantine since you'll likely be getting your birds from more than one source. I use my first mistake-cage for quarantine but it won't fit in my car so I also got 2 Prevue "breeding cages" @ about $33 that are about 24" long and have a divider for transport and quarantine in the future. I'm about to get some free birds - some societies and some owls, believe it or not, from someone who doesn't want to breed anything but Gouldians any more. So I need something to transport and quarantine 6 to 8 birds in.



You could put birds from the different sources in each half of the cage. I think it comes with a solid divider as well as a mesh divider - to quarantine birds from multiple sources use the solid divider. If I'm wrong and it doesn't come with one you can just make one out of cardboard and tape it to the mesh divider to cut down on cross contamination during quarantine. It's REALLY small but ... I understand about not being able to afford all the stuff we'd like in big big sizes. And it IS temporary - keeping even just 2 birds for the long term in a cage this small (without the divider) would be cruel, but a month in quarantine in one of these won't do any lasting damage.

There is also a Prevue very small cage that is for sale for $7.22 on Amazon but the seller will only let you buy one - probably "one at a time" as I doubt they have a mechanism built in to Amazon to check your buying history, LOL! This cage is only good for short-term transport, say to a vet or from a bird show or pet shop.



If you don't get all your birds at once you could get by with just the one quarantine cage - wait a month between bird acquisitions and you can quarantine them one pet store at a time.

But if you do that, rearrange the big cage before introducing new birds and use some fake silk plants up high in the cage to give them places to hide from each other until they acclimate. Societies are pretty peaceful but its always better to assume they might not be real friendly to a new cage- mate.

[Sheather]

"I've just never seen societies behave territorially over nests in the absence of breeding pairs."

I have.

It's unusual, but some birds do not get along and will need separate sleeping quarters. Always better to have more options than needed than not enough. Minimum one nest per pair.

[Sojourner]

Sheather

And given that it would be unusual I would still start with ONE nest. No need to set the whole thing up for failure at the get-go.

And then just add extra nests should it prove to be a problem, as I suggested to handle that rare case.

[Sheather]

Do a few nests.

At the very least, they'll enjoy rebuilding and dismantling them.