Earliest to expect fledgling to take a bath?

[a_gouldian]

I was wondering when the earliest our Owl finch fledgling that is being hand fed might start wanting to take baths on his own? Is that something they do when they are young, or not until they are a little older. He is 26 days old and able to navigate all the perches in his cage and can easily fly about 5-6 feet when out of the cage. We have a shallow plastic bath dish in his cage with about a 1/2 inch of water in it. He is a little messy because of the hand fed formula getting on his feathers and it is difficult to hand clean him although we do the best we can.

[Babs _Owner]

a_gouldian

After each feeding plop him in the water bowl. He will probably just jump back out. That way he can get wet and shake off some of the formula and start to preen.

[Stuart whiting]

a_gouldian hi there mate I kinda agree with Babs here or if your unsure of this I'd perhaps wait for about another week so the bird can gain just a little more strength and then try placing a shallow dish on the floor of the cage,

Place this in the cage first thing in the morning so if the bird does start to paddle about he's then got all day to dry off properly before he goes to sleep for the night,

If possible keep an eye on him for a little while when you first introduce the water,

I'd be inclined to only leave the bath water there for a couple of hrs and then take back out of the cage , I'd do this every day for a while and then eventually can leave in the cage for the day and perhaps take out later in the afternoon,

Incidentally when a bird becomes older a bird will normally bath first thing as soon as you put clean water into the cage, once a bird has bathed I've often noticed that even by leaving the water in the cage all day that the birds will rarely bath anymore during the day,

My belief us that as soon as a bird has bathed and the water has been used and goes slightly dirty that will be it for the day until you place clean water again the following morning

Because of knowing this I tend to leave me bath dishes in for the day and am not to over bothered if I leave em till the following morning to replace with fresh water because as mentioned that I've never really experienced any birds bath late in the day and go to roost still wet.

As you've now probably gathered that I do like to give my birds the opportunity to bath every day and also if their water drinker should ever fall off of the cage front I then know that they've still got water in the cage / avairy

Everybody is different in how they decide to bath their birds but this is just what works for me

[a_gouldian]

a_gouldian

After each feeding plop him in the water bowl. He will probably just jump back out. That way he can get wet and shake off some of the formula and start to preen.

I tried this and he didn't like it. I dried off his tail and bottom side but I could tell he was not very happy about getting his feathers wet. I think I will wait a few more weeks or a month before I try to put him in any water again.

[ac12]

Sometimes birds need to have another bird to copy.
"Monkey see, monkey do."
So it might be hard to do it by itself.

While he may not like getting wet, right now, after a while he may get used to it. No way to tell.

[Stuart whiting]

a_gouldian

Doesn't really matter to much at the moment, if he becomes a little dirty, normally from feacies around feet, vent and tail are likely places, you can then hold the bird and quickly hand wash and dry gently with some kitchen towel etc,

There is no hurry and yer little finch may decide to bath at a later date