Newbie needs help!

[EGByrd]

Hi everyone! My husband and I bought a pair of cordon bleus a while back and the male unfortunately died, leaving the hen alone. We haven't had much luck finding cordon bleus around us but she needed friends, and we found a lady who needed to sell her mixed flock because she was too old to properly care for them. She didn't know what she had, so we didn't know what we were walking into until we got to her house. She had 8 zebras and 3 orange weaver finches. Two of the orange weavers are males in breeding plumage. All of the birds were living in a cage roughly 2' deep, 3' wide, and 3' tall. We have since moved an orange weaver male and the female into a cage we had on hand, 16" deep, 15" tall, 21" wide. The other male is still in with the zebras and our much happier cordon bleu. He doesn't seem to be causing any trouble and I'm hoping with no females in with him he won't be aggressive. We have plans to make an outside aviary, but if we choose to keep both males could the single male get along with the other finches? We want multiple aviaries in one unit so if we can figure out how to keep the weavers, a pair would be alone in an aviary while the other male hung out with the rest of the flock. I have learned that orange weaver males have harems. How soon would I need to get more females for them to be happy? Also, when I caught the male to move him out of the original cage, I noticed his toe nails got stuck in the bars of the cage. They had grown so long they were spiraling around and getting caught. I trimmed his nails and put sandpaper perches in with him and in the original cage. The other male's weren't as bad, but could definitely use a trim. Does anyone know why the male weavers' nails grew so long while the female and the zebras look good? I'm sorry I have so many questions, I'm learning as quickly as I can but I have a long way to go.

[debbie276]

Welcome to the forum!
I'll let the zebra and weaver experts answer your questions, just wanted to say hi and oh my that cage was crowded.

[Lisa]

Glad you separated the 2 male weavers... that would have been a nightmare waiting to happen! I have the reverse of you, 1 male and 2 females. I have them all together in one half of an aviary and they all get along well (so far!) My male's nails grow quite quickly too. I think they all have the propensity to get long nails but just as people, they grow at different rates. I would just keep an eye on all of their nails.

I used to have the one orange weaver male housed with zebras too. He was more peaceful than the zebras were! While he did tolerate his odd cagemates, I do think he was lonely. He did not spend any amount of time fraternizing with the zebras EVER. Not once. I would keep an eye on him while in mixed company - especially if your other birds begin to breed. If another bird was to get territorial and give him a hard time, he could easily kill the other bird in defense. Check out the length of weaver legs compared to other finches! They are quite powerful. Also, my orange weaver does a pitbull-never let go whenever I have to move him - he hurts a little but has left clamp marks on my fingers that took hours to go away. Imagine if that same pressure bite was applied to another finch. My females have been less aggressive, but again, I would be careful housing them with other birds. If you do, I would VERY closely keep a constant watch for aggression issues... they may start small and snowball into something bigger. Or he may live peacefully forevermore. You never know. Ideally, it would be best if you were able to get a few females for the male and house him with them instead.

Best of luck to you!

[EGByrd]

Thanks for replying! All seemed to be well, the weaver was keeping his distance from the zebras and only a couple times pecked at the cordon bleu when she got too close. The white female zebra seemed to be nesting, I caught her mating yesterday, but just now I had to put the other weaver in solitary. He was weaving strips of newspaper around the back bars of the cage and while I was watching him, wondering if males weave nests if they don't have females, he started chasing the white female zebra around the cage. Right before he started chasing her he puffed up his head feathers and acted annoyed by the other birds. I caught him, used the opportunity to trim his nails, and put him in solitary. Since we had no idea we would end up with orange weavers, we are in no way prepared to house them. He is now in a cage about 2' tall x 1' deep x 2' wide. I don't know how the lady had all of these birds together for 8 months! I feel terrible that the weavers are in smaller cages but I don't know what else to do. Until we get the aviary built this is the only thing I can think of to do.