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About this blog

Well, I got my first 6 finches at Stafford in October - just before my birthday - I didn't know that I wanted to take up bird keeping as a hobby but there it was - my birthday present! My partner used to keep budgies but gave them up when he got divorced but wanted to get back into the hobby. His thoughts - if he has budgies and I have finches I can clean out his cages when I do mine (a typical man!). So there I was, the proud owner of 2 cock and 4 hen zebra finches.

I spent the next few weeks looking up genetics, colour variations, diet, breeding advice and anything else I could read - if anyone had told me a year ago - even 2 months ago - that my spare time would be spent googling finch information I would not have believed them!

I joined the Zebra Finch Society and have ordered my rings for birds born next year so am carefully keeping males and females separate until December - I don't want any accidents! (I am a family planning nurse - I am fully aware that accidents happen!!)

Today we trekked up North and acquired another 10 cocks and 10 hens, I'm not sure that we meant to end up with that many................

I'm now studying the birds I have for colours, shape etc to make sure that I make up the best possible pairs. I bought a set of 8 breeding cages so will just put down 8 pairs at first - but which ones........ I'm very excited to see what comes out!

My partner will be building me an outdoor aviary ready for the spring, I am very excited to see it al come together. We are imminently going to move house (solicitors permitting) and so the new bird room has been made and dismantled in kit form so it can be reassembled in a few hours - very exciting.

I tried to upload some pictures but my compute crashed! Maybe another day.........

 

 

 

Entries in this blog

 

and there are more....

I started my zebra collection with 6 -  this has now increased to 38 (I think - but they don't sit still!). Every time we go out we seem to acquire a few more! Last week I paired my best birds and now have 5 boxes with eggs! Tho original pair that I put together laid their first egg 2 weeks ago - I was worried as they didn't seem to want to incubate, however once there were 4 eggs they incubated and today, less than 2 weeks after the last egg I have a chick! I thought it took longer but there is
Penny W

Penny W

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Stranger in the camp

I was sold a bird last week and told it was a white, black faced cock. I didn't really want it, but it came as half of a pair, the hen being a normal which is what I was looking for. I'm not convinced it is a cock - to the extent that I have put him/her in my cage of hens and he/she is not creating havoc! I posted a picture on some facebook pages and the general consensus is that it is a hen, possibly grey cheek cfw. Anyone else got any good ideas?
Penny W

Penny W

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All change!

I keep my hen and cock zebras in separate flights. So far it is has been the hens, and the foreigns having access to the outside flight. Today it was time for a swap. the flight cages are designed so this swap can be done without having to catch all the birds so it was just a case of encouraging the hens into one long flight cage and the cocks into another then opening different doors and voila - their accommodation is swapped over. It didn't take the cocks long to realise they could go out into
Penny W

Penny W

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There is an egg!

Well, today there was an egg in the nest box - but neither finch was in there and it felt quite chilled - is this normal?? Should they not be making an effort to keep the egg warm?? Or do they not incubate until they have laid the whole clutch??
Penny W

Penny W

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good news, and bad, and more good news

Well, three of the four eggs hatched but yesterday one of the chicks was dead in the nest, it was well fed but appeared to have been flattened by the parents :-( The last egg is still in the nest - should I remove it or wait until the parents throw it out?? Of my other pairs I now have 6 pairs with eggs 27 eggs so far! Our candling torch has arrived and it appears that most of the eggs are fertile, maybe I should have ordered more than 20 ZFS rings!! My finches are definitely doin
Penny W

Penny W

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It's been a while...

I have been very slow to update this blog - not found time to visit the site for a while. My breeding seems to be improving - I have actually bred some hens now!! (Still have an excess of cocks though). I have rung my first round of Timors too - there were 4 originally but I am left with 2, I have another nest of Timor chicks a few days old and a nest of Timor eggs too. With my zebras I am doing well with Penguins, I have a few fawn penguin hens so I'm tryong to work out how to get a fawn p
Penny W

Penny W

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my growing babies

Bearing in mind that 6 months ago I would never have believed that I would own zebra finches I am really please with the way my babies are colouring up, hopefully I can upload some pictures
Penny W

Penny W

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Exciting times

I seem to be having a good run on chicks at the moment, I have a nest of zebras starting to hatch today, I now have 4 Hecks chicks and best of all, my nest of gouldian eggs started hatching today, I know that gouldians are not renowned for being good parents so I hope they will raise their young. I have some Bengalese, but none ready to use as foster parents yet, I spent a long time yesterday trying to sex my Bengalese - but gave up! The star finches have started laying again, I hope they see it
Penny W

Penny W

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And then there were 4!

There are now 4 eggs and one or both of the finches is in the nest box at all times. Fingers crossed that the eggs are fertile. Time will tell. We are off to the Welsh National Show this weekend, just to see what is out there. This finch hobby is a bit addictive!  
Penny W

Penny W

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update

it's been a while since I updated my blog. I'm winding down on breeding now as we are away at the end of April and I don't want to have to ask the neighbour to have to check nest boxes. It's giving me a chance to take stock and work out what I have and what I want to keep. We seem to have ended up with an abundance of cages (a lot of which are flat packed in the loft at present) Last weekend, when it was the Stafford Sale we had arranged to buy a load of cages from a guy who was giving up t
Penny W

Penny W

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busy week

well, since the weekend there have been ups and downs - maybe more downs than ups :-( One nest of 4 CFW chicks, nearly fledged, one died, it looked like it had moved away from its siblings and got cold?, its crop was full. Of my 2 first chicks, today I noticed them feeding themselves which cheered me, 2 hours later when I went into the bird room, one of them was dead A nest of 5 CFW chicks have all been plucked by one or both of their parents, the hen has also been plucked bald. I
Penny W

Penny W

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nice surprises

Got back from holiday today. My ZFS rings had arrived - and so had several chicks! I ordered my rings when I had just 2 cocks and 4 hens, so thought 20 rings would be plenty for my first year - how wrong can a person be?? I now have 22 chicks - from 5 pairs (9 pairs were put down). 2 of the chicks are too big for 2016 ZFS rings but the remaining 20 were all rung tonight! Now to order more as I have another pair sitting! My CFWs are very prolific. My light backs did not seem to know what to do wi
Penny W

Penny W

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update

It's been a few days since I updated my blog so here we go. My 2 remaining chicks are looking healthy, beginning to feather up but not sure what colour yet!. Of my other 8 pairs down, 7 have eggs, the smallest clutch being 3, the largest 7 (obviously didn't know when to stop!) Yesterday, after a bit of carpentry by my partner we acquired another breeding cage, we put our best normal hen in and the couldn't decide which was the best cock to go with her. We made our decision and put them together,
Penny W

Penny W

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