New black-crowned waxbills

[KarenB]

I had a thought (occasionally a scary thing). Many African species prefer to build their own nests. Provide lots and lots of greenery and vines and whatnot, a ton of coco fiber and feathers, and see if they might prefer building their own. Couldn't hurt to try.

[isobea]

Great minds think alike (see, not so scary): they have lots of coconut fiber, grasses, fibers from an old potato sack, white fibers, white and brown feathers (my poor pillow!), eucalyptus leaves (which the spice finches love), small roots, etc. My fire finches and owl finches actually preferred to build their own nests in shrubbery and in pine branches, so I'm trying to offer a little of everything. So far I have only seen them inspect the ready made nests, though. Maybe these guys are lazy? We shall see.
Iso

[lovezebs]

isobea


~Elana~

[josh1810]

Where did you guys buy your black crowned waxbills from?

I just bought a pair at a bird fair this past weekend. I nearly fell over when I read someone paid 45.00 for a pair???? I just paid 190.00 for a pair... Lord I he I can get them to raise now...

I would like to get another pair soon.

[KarenB]

I got my pair from a broker who was selling of all their stock. I'm not good at remembering what I paid for each of my birds, because I now have so many that it's hard to keep up; but I want to say I paid $80 for my pair.

One kind of interesting behavior I have noticed with mine is that they have been doing this little dance by bowing and chirping to one another, in fact, very similar to what my lavenders do. The other day my female was preening a newly fledged gold breasted waxbill. I thought that was unusual. Usually my waxbills stick with their own kind and really don't pay seeming attention to others.

[isobea]

josh1810 - I bought mine from Birds Express in October. They had a 'special' of about $55 a piece. Mine are wild-caught and were pretty rough looking (healthy but some feathers missing). I'm thinking they sold the ones that were in great shape for full price (right now it's $95), then discounted the remaining ones.

KarenB - after you posted the picture of yours snuggling in their nest, I had high hopes you would have eggs by now. Mine aren't doing anything different, but the temperatures have dropped (somewhat) lately and I'm thinking they might wait for spring to come.

Elana and Karen - tried the full romantic scenario we concocted but to no avail. This morning I saw one of them watching a spice finch squeezing the soft innards out of a meal worm, tilted head, big question mark on his face:
- What your doing?
- Delicious (mumbled around the worm in his beak), you should try it.
- Really? Looks kinda gross.
- It's all in the technique.
- OK, one try. (grabs one and immediately spits it out again) I knew it, should never have tried to eat a seed that moves!

Iso

[KarenB]

Mine are ignoring the romantic lighting and music. I think there is probably too much activity going on in that flight right now with the four recent fledgling gold breasts. In fact, I've seen the black-crowned hen AND the male firefinch both feeding the little beggers today.

[lovezebs]

KarenB
They probably figure, shove something into their mouths, anything to shut them up .

~Elana~

[KarenB]

Maybe so, though they really don't make any noise until they're actually being fed. It just really surprised me about the other waxbills pitching in. Apparently my societies had a word with them.

[honeycreeper]

We have three Black crowned waxbills, two seem to be paired up. They were flighty to start, but have settled down the past month. They are in a 10'x6' aviary with about 15 other waxbills and other finches. We obtained ours from a local dealer in the fall via Birds Express, paid about $80 each. They play with grass but no nest building activity yet.

[Sally]

honeycreeper You might have more success with yours being in an aviary, as many of the waxbills do better with more space. Those of us who are cage breeding often struggle with keeping waxbills happy.

[isobea]

honeycreeper - Welcome to the forum! You will find that there are a lot of nice helpful people here.
Where are you located? I also got mine from Birds Express - wonder if they were out of the same shipment. Mine have settled down nicely as well and by now are very relaxed as long as I stay in the first 12 feet of my 16 foot long aviary. My four paired up early on and still spend a lot of time together, especially during their daily 'lunch break'. Still no sign of them wanting to build a nest which right now is fine with me because I have a hard enough time finding blooming grasses for my strawberry babies. Later in the spring should work out better.
Iso

[Aurélien LEQUOY]

it s strange because this bird is really hard to find in europe

[honeycreeper]

ISO, we are located in Thousand Oaks. We purchased our birds from PetPals in NoHo.

[isobea]

honeycreeper - Glad to hear you are not that far away from us (by American standards ). We used to go through Thousand Oaks a few times a year on our way up to Morro Bay (good friends of ours moved up there).
How are your birdies doing? Anything new to report? Mine aren't into building nests or even playing with nesting material at this point. I guess the cooler nights and less daylight hours made them sit back (not that they ever really sit still for a long time) and take it easy. Fine with me. I'm hoping that we'll have more wild grasses and weeds growing and blooming in the spring. From what I've read they love those.
A friend of mine, who lives just 30 min. from here, has seven of them. He bought them late last summer and hasn't had any luck yet breeding them either. We'll all just have to keep our fingers and toes crossed I guess.
Iso