Family of three Zebra Finches....adding a female to this?

plantsandbirds · Post by **plantsandbirds** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 10:21 am

I am a new finch owner - within six months. When I first got my pair of Zebra finches I stupidly put a nest in their cage (on the advice of the pet store) and as a result I now have Pippin the young male finch. I'm lucky I didn't get more in that clutch!

He is growing up and getting pushy towards his parents. I have ordered a flight cage to expand their home and plan to get a female finch for Pippin. Is it more advised to get two new females to sort out the pecking order?

The cage should not hold anymore than five finches and that would be pushing the limit a little.

I'm planning on not introducing the new female until the new cage arrives so that I can put all of the birds in the new cage at the same time.

Thalia · Post by **Thalia** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 11:33 am

I'm fairly new too, but I do have a few suggestions/questions. If you're keeping all the birds together then please don't add nests or you might get Pippin inbreeding with his mom.
Also you should quarantine any new bird you're bringing in. The petstores recommend 2 weeks but I've read that some people quarantine for over 6 weeks. Quarantine will prevent the new bird from passing on any diseases that she may be carrying. I would probably move the 3 you have into the new cage and get your new female and quarantine her in the old cage. The bigger space might help your little boy from picking on his parents.
I'm planning on making an aviary this summer (maybe sooner since I've got 4 eggs in a nest) and I want to get some different birds to add as well, so I was planning on building the aviary and putting my established birds in the aviary and using their 2 old cages as quarantines for the new birds. I'm probably going to quarantine for 2 weeks, since I'm impatient and the place I get them from has healthy birds.

plantsandbirds · Post by **plantsandbirds** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 11:42 am

THANK YOU Thalia for the quarantine information. It makes sense but I really hadn't thought about it! The old cage will work perfectly as a quarantine cage.

I have learned my lesson about those nests! Innocent me thought that the finches needed a cozy place to sit - and boy didn't they look cute peeping out of the nest.....until I heard the actual "cheep, cheep, cheep" of Pippin! Ack. I had worried about Pippin and his mother Marjorie. She is a very sweet little worried bird.

I do have silk plants in the cage now and will add more hiding places and places of interest in the new, bigger cage. I need to purchase some realistic perches too, rather than just the straight perches.

I have put an apple wood branch in there but I need to secure it better.

Crystal · Post by **Crystal** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 12:57 pm

Two weeks is really not a sufficient amount of time for an effective quarantine (not that any amount of quarantine can guarantee all healthy birds--some birds can remain asymptomatic carriers of disease "indefinitely"). Many of the diseases birds can harbor, if they will show up at all, may take more than 2 weeks to do so. Without a sufficient quarantine period (6-8 weeks) and a veterinary health check to screen for the asymptomatic carrier states, you will always be taking a risk of introducing disease into your aviary.

As for housing 4-5 zebras in a flight: you can try it, but you may notice that the birds fight because there are actually too few of them housed together, and they are more able to single each other out. The magic number seems to be 6: for some reason when at least 6 zebras are housed together, aggression often lessens. It is not a hard and fast rule, but it seems to be a common experience among finch keepers and breeders. Of course you'll have to make sure the cage can comfortably accommodate that many birds. Additionally, there are other things you can try to reduce aggression among the birds you have:

http://www.finchinfo.com/housing/reduci ... ession.php

plantsandbirds · Post by **plantsandbirds** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 2:17 pm

If I went for six finches should I keep the pairs even - male and female - or have more females then males?

I wouldn't be breeding them intentionally.

Thalia · Post by **Thalia** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 2:29 pm

I don't know that sex ratio affects aggression all that much, the first finch I had was housed with another male finch for the last year until the other finch died and they got along great, they never shut up, but they got along alright

Crystal · Post by **Crystal** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 4:58 pm

If you are going to have a non breeding situation, and just keeping zebras, the sex ratio probably isn't that important. Some species cannot have more than one male per enclosure (unless the enclosure is very large or there are many females per male), but zebras do not tend to fall into that category.

plantsandbirds · Post by **plantsandbirds** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 2:31 pm

The pet shop sent me home with a white "female" Zebra Finch (for my young male) and HE turned out to be a big BULLY BOY!

HE is now in his own cage as I've moved the regular family into a flight cage, which they like. The white color fooled me at the store. And the fact that the employees had it in a cage with a nest and eggs. They were sure it was female. NOPE. I'd never seen a white Zebra finch before and frankly I didn't care what color it was I just needed a female.

It wasn't singing at the store, which it instantly did when put in with my three, along with generating a great deal of upset to my happy three. Now I feel sorry for the thing. It's been stressed out at the shop, driven home, put in a nice cage with three other finches to attack and bully, grabbed out of there and put in a little cage all by itself. I don't want another male but I feel bad for this one. The store had no other "females". The others were regular colored males. So, High-ho, off to the other pet shop I go tomorrow to see if I can find two females. If I add a female to the nice playmates and one to the bully-boy then MAYBE I can put monster bird and his female in with the rest. I thought about returning him but he is pathetic really. I shouldn't promote those pet shops by buying from them.

Thalia · Post by **Thalia** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 8:42 am

white zebra males and females both look the same, so if he was in a cage with eggs and he wasn't singing I don't blame the employees. It's an unfortunate mix up but that's why most pet stores don't guarantee sex, age or temperament. Maybe if you keep him in a separate cage but in the same room as everyone else they'll get used to eachother and start getting along after a while.

plantsandbirds · Post by **plantsandbirds** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:26 am

Problem is fixed. I traveled to a different store and was able to even out numbers so that there are six finches now. Everyone is pretty happy, although there are a few squabbles going on every once and awhile. I have silk plants to hide in and millet sprays to hang off of and it is pretty amusing when everyone "meeps" at the same time! I am hoping for the best since I couldn't quarantine.

tammieb · Post by **tammieb** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:56 am

With Zebs you are always going to have some squabbling.

Good luck with the new birds.

plantsandbirds · Post by **plantsandbirds** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:38 am

I like that in the morning when I go to take the cover off all of the little darlings

are sitting side by side on their swing. I know finches don't usually use swings so I put silk plants around it and it's like they are sitting in a tree!

FINCHforum

Family of three Zebra Finches....adding a female to this?

Family of three Zebra Finches....adding a female to this?

update