captive whydah breeding

[liqinghua]

iknow this is quite a hard thing to do, but i by chance read someting about whydah parasite-breeding behavior. in their native habitat, they parasite on waxbills, i know that in america whydah have established colonies of breeding. and through the birding people‘s watch and further assurance, they co-live with wild spice finches. and even whydah fledgings get to be fed by spice finches, that means the whydah have turned to spice finch for parasite.
captive spice finch breeding, i think it is much easier than waxbills, so suppose there is an aviary big enough to accomodate a small colony of spice finches, and a colony of whydahs, spice finches can build of their own nest and breeding, they can even use nestboxes, and since in the wild whydah can use spice for breeding host, so do in the aviary.
if this goes well , think what a profit can be got. just thinking of it can make me excited.
i now keep 17 spice finches , they are from the wild and handfed by me when unfeathered.6 males and 11 females. they are now 6-7 months old . still they can peck millet from my hand.

so, all in all , this is only an idea, any ideas or suggestions from you all appreciated. i am looking forward to your voices.. cheers.

[Sally]

liqinghua I don't know anything about whydahs, but I wanted to welcome you to the forum! We've never had many members from China, so it would be very interesting to learn what species are available to you and how you set them up. There's lots of good reading at www.finchinfo.com, though much of the housing information is more how we keep finches in the U.S. and Canada.

[Paul's Amazing Birds]

I have a pair of Whydahs in a mixed aviary with a lot of other finch species. The mid air courtship dance of the male is fascinating but he can become a little aggressive to other birds while his tail is in its full length for about 6 months of the year. No real fighting going on but he does try to chase others away from the food sources.

I considered selling the pair but my solution was to simply add more feeding locations and provide plenty of nest boxes and baskets so the female Whydah has to search a little to find some eggs to break. Hens sitting tight don't seem to allow an intrusion and most of my other birds are now used to the bully flying in to try to scare them off the feeders by flashing that 9" tail. So far no baby Whydahs in the past 3 years which is OK with me.

Paul

[liqinghua]

@ Paul， thank you for the beautiful picture, and it is said one whydah male can have many females, you have many finch species , i think there must be some kinds suitable for whydah host. if you have spice finches , that would be perfect for whydah to parasite breeding in your big aviary. why not have a try?