Breeding dilemma...

[DamonIRB]

I've mentioned a few times that we have 5 Red-Ear/Black Rumped Waxbills. We had 6, but lost one of the females back in July. We have a Society that keeps the loner somewhat occupied; most of the time the male red-ear won't let the Society roost next to him at night, but occasionally he puts up with him. The other 4 Red-Ears pair off each night in their favorite roosting place. They are in a large flight - 48Lx48Hx36D. We've never let them breed, but they have gotten VERY vocal and active each Spring, so we're thinking about letting them give it a shot this year. That leads to a problem though...

None of the waxbills are banded and they all look exactly alike. We can't even tell which ones are males/females... they are truly mono-morphic. I'm sure it would be ideal to move the individual pairs to a smaller breeder cage to let them do their thing, but we have no way to know if we have the correct two once they start flying around while we try to catch them. We could easily, although accidentally, put two males or two females in the breeder cage. Or worse, mix them up and put the wrong male with the wrong female! That would sure tick all of them off...

Would they breed in the large flight without fighting? What if we put 3 or 4 nests in there, spread as far apart as possible and close to the bottom, since waxbills build their nests close to the ground, and with lots of cover? They get along beautifully now - eating together from the same dish, bathing together in the same bowl, etc., and they are almost always roosting on the same perch during the day - but I certainly realize behavior during breeding is much different. I've never seen them even offer to go after each other; they really are a very passive species.

Thoughts? Would you try it for a few days/weeks to see what they do? I guess it's easy enough to remove the nests if they start fighting, but have we flipped a switch by then and even removing the nest might not be enough?

Thanks in advance for any input.

D

[Sally]

I would catch them up and put a different color split plastic band on each bird. Then, put them all back together. Now, you will be able to see which ones are paired up.

You have two options. You can leave all the birds together and just add nests and nesting material and see what happens. Some of the waxbills do tend to breed in communities in the wild, so it may work with this group. You can always separate them if needed. I would also offer them lots of coco fiber, hay/grass, and white feathers, and see if they will build their own nests.

Or, once you know which ones are paired up, you can separate them into their own breeding cages. The advantage to this system is that you will be able to identify which babies come from which pair (if they both breed), and you will then have unrelated babies to work with for the next generation.

Here is a good article on this species:

http://www.finchinfo.com/birds/finches/ ... axbill.php