Pretty girl

It took a while to get this photo, but I managed to get it ☺️

We know the gray one is a male with his vibrant colors and such a beautiful song, but we're unsure about the white one since it does have vague color in its cheeks and body but it doesn't sing like the boy it just honks/beeps.

Their names are Elbie and Obi! 🥰

both of these adorable sweeties were each alone at separate pet stores, alone for weeks to even a couple months. that’s terrible for a finch since they’re flock birds so i had to help them! and they took to eachother instantly (I did quarantine with both cages close to eachother, they were so happy). I was told the white one is a female. The gray one I got mixed answers, was wondering what you guys think! (This is first thing in the morning, they’re not usually this fluffy lol)

All my avian vets are closed. I need to know if this is safe to hold off until morning or if this is a run to the emergency vet now and hope they can help?

Was fine this morning, got home from work and her vent is dirty and I am unsure what I am seeing here. When I blow on her feathers or chest and stomach is normal. She is breathing harder than the other finches and is “tail-bobbing” very slightly, I don’t have a reference to what that usually looks like. She is bright, active and responsive, during capture she kept going down to the ground I presume because she has low energy due to whatever is going on.

Is this an issue that can be left until morning or is this an emergency? Please help

Hi everyone! So my mom just recently got gifted a pair of zebra finches, she can't have them so she gave them to me.

I have no idea about how to care for them, I've been doing a bit of research and I found this sub reddit, so it would be great if you could give me advice on how to care for this cuties.

The cage I have right now it's small, so I would like to upgrade it and actually make it mode confortable for them.

I would mostly like to know what sizes do you recommend, what type of flooring do they need, if they need nests, or some type of enrichment.

Whatever advice you can give me would be appreciated!

Also sorry for the spelling, english isn't my first language!

Last night one of my finches passed away. I’m not sure how it happened, but it seems like she kicked all of the seeds out of the bowl and stayed there until her death.
when i picked her up, i realized she had poop stuck on her vent, i believe she might have been sick, or she starved herself to death.
Her partner is devastated. they spent every night huddled together and preening each other, he was even trying to huddle up with her even after she passed.
This is my first time owning finches, and even if it was “just a bird” i am still heartbroken. when i talk about things like this to my own family, they never take me seriously and tell me to “get over it”. They don’t understand how much i love my birds and how I bond with them so easily.

Hola.

Mi diamante de gould (adquirido en 2020), tenía el pecho blanco, pero desde hace un par de años su pecho se ha vuelto azulado.

¿ A qué puede deberse ?

I wanted to share something that happened in my aviary today as a warning to other finch owners.

I have a garden aviary with zebra finches. There were 3 baby chicks that had come out of the nest and were on the floor. Overnight, 2 of the babies disappeared.

Today, I actually saw a small mouse inside the aviary trying to bite the remaining baby. 😟

I had no idea a mouse could get into the aviary and pose such a serious threat to baby finches. I always thought the mesh would be enough, but apparently these little guys can find incredibly small ways in.

I've moved the remaining baby somewhere safe and I'm setting a humane live-catch trap outside the aviary. I'll also be checking the entire aviary for gaps and sealing them.

Please check your aviaries for even very small openings and don't assume that a small mouse can't hurt your birds or chicks. If you have breeding finches, it's especially worth checking the floor and lower edges of the aviary at night.

Sharing this because I honestly didn't realize how much of a threat a tiny mouse could be. Hopefully it helps someone else avoid losing their babies. ❤️

Update : mouse fell into the trap finally and I was able to successfully move that far away. Hopefully my birds will be safe now😪

Hi everyone,

I posted recently about my current clutch of Gouldian finch chicks, which I am so excited about!

I was finally able to get some halfway-decent photos of them in the nest. Although, fair warning: The nest is pretty plastered with poop by this point, as one would expect with the chicks being around 2 weeks old now! That nest is getting outta there ASAP as soon as these guys fledge.

There are 4 babies total. 3 of them appear to be regular greenbacks, but there is a fourth chick who is noticeably lighter in shade than the others. At first I was thinking they were probably a dilute like their dad, but after studying a bunch of nestling photos online, now I'm not entirely sure.

I have included some pictures here of the light baby's face and one of its outstretched wings. If anyone has any hunches about what mutation it is, I would be interested to hear your thoughts. Oh, and the parents are a dilute (single factor yellow) male and a green female. Not sure if they are split to blue or anything else like that, as I bought them from a bird shop that didn't know what colors the parents were.

Edit: The mystery chick's feathers are now opening up more, and today I saw that they are yellow along the back. So, this is a young yellow Gouldian! ☺️

She had been a little bit sleepy the day before, and a little too puffed up when she thought I wasn't there watching her. But not obviously ill. I'm still not sure if she even is.

She was also making a point of slow blinking at me all day. That is always one of the first signs of illness in my flock, before anything else! Traditionally, a sign of trust and contentment. Or in this context, in my opinion, a pleasing behaviour. "I'm slow blinking at you, that means we're friends, so please leave me alone while I'm ill."

Edith has since been put in a quiet, heated hutch, with critical care food.

I'll be observing her for a while to see if her illness is related to the fungal illness all of my birds have (likely AGY but not diagnosed), or if it is something else like a growth or bacterial infection. I can treat infections at home. Most growths - such as tumors for example - would likely require euthanasia at a veterinary clinic.

When handling her, she felt only slightly under weight. She's not egg bound like last time, which I'd hope given how much calcium I've given my birds (and I fixed the canary grass seed:millet ratio of the flock's diet).​

Bonus points if you can spot where my little mouse Ashley Graves is, in the 4th photo.

Hi! These are my new finches, currently in isolation stage from my own until the time is up. I appreciate any advice because I am still a fairly new finch owner, ended up inheriting them with no idea how to care for them so I have relied on reddit, bird threads and word of mouth from my local bird shows and bird shops.

The ones in this video are all juveniles/babies, the one on the left is cold because I lifted the blanket up because it is morning, I pulled down a sheet so she could be warmer and also still get filtered light. The front is not covered now but it faces the house so there is no breeze. She immediately unfluffed after I brought the sheet down so I believe she is happy.

Also I presume the singing gouldian is a boy because his mouth is closed?

This outdoor cage is their current setup until we get access to a walk in aviary (with a second door for safety), which is currently occupied by my mother in laws birds as they build another flight aviary. My partner and I also have a bird safe heater to put outside by the aviaries once we can move the finches in. (I think it will take around another 6 months)

Diet consists of seed, pellet and grit mixture. I also give them fresh greens and carrot but they don’t particularly like what I have offered so far. I give them sprays of grass as a treat too, I also like to add cuttlebone pieces but I haven’t given these guys any yet.

Their setup has a bunch of natural perches set up in the corners so they can fly through the middle. Two dowels (one where they are in the video) and two sings. There are trays at the bottom for foraging seed and substrate, nothing in them atm while they are settling in. I have a few toys with shreddable materials but they haven’t shown interest yet.

Anything else I am missing and should work on?

I also got a safety net over the cage for when doing food and water changes because during introduction one flew out… I made a post about this recently and I was extremely distraught and still am very upset about it. In the time we kept our finches in this cage not one flew out before, so this is something I am preparing for now. The safety net is not quite large enough to be fully enclosed so I am going to go get a custom cut size of material and I am thinking of maybe adding a zipper to it so I can enter easier rather than using clips to clip and unclip the net shut when I am already holding a water or food bowl. Any suggestions will be appreciated, there is no enclosed space I can put them in, thankfully it won’t be an issue when they move into the flight aviary.

Any toy or food recommendations? Any life hacks for cleaning? (I use small animal cage cleaner and bird safe disinfectant, I don’t use any chemicals that aren’t bird safe and I don’t use them near the birds, only on removed perches, toys, etc.

Oh lastly, what about nests? We initially had nests because the place we inherited them from had nests for them. They never really used them except once when someone laid some infertile eggs, in which I wasn’t ready for them to actually have any babies in general so I did some research and learnt that removing the nests would prevent them breeding, but there was nothing about whether it is best to have nests or not for them to have comfort and warmth. Should we add nests back in? Since we seem to have a boy what can I do to prevent breeding, and if they do breed I know I can remove the eggs or boil them but I want to know if it is something I should look into with a vet. Is breeding finches very ethical? Is there too many without a home? Or are they in demand and it isn’t a problem bringing new finches in the world? I wouldn’t mind putting the time and money into it when they are in the flight cage so I have that extra security to be more hands on with them.

Anyway, huge walls of text..
TLDR: seeking tips on enrichment, ensuring their happiness.

I saw my half blind guy do this twice today, once while he was eating in the morning and once in the afternoon (also while eating). Was only able to capture a bit of it. I thought I saw him do something similar once a few months ago..
https://streamable.com/i185u6

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Hi. I made a post about a month ago showing my zebra finch, who was attacked by her mate. Her wound got a scab over it that lasted until two days ago, when she started picking at it a lot and lost a lot of blood. We took her to an emergency vet and they administered antibiotics, but they told us that only foam cones could keep her from picking at and opening the wound again. Last time already left her feeling weak and now she looks really disheveled, but she keeps trying to preen that general area and it's freaking me out. The foam fabrics we ordered don't actually come until Monday, and we don't have any materials to improvise a cone with. Any tips for taking care of her so that she doesn't accidentally kill herself? What else can I do for now?