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Penny W

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Blog Entries posted by Penny W

  1. Penny W

    One week later

    By Penny W,

    Last week we looked at possible pairings for the finches, think we have made the right decision - but plenty of time to change our minds - have moved them into different cages - double breeding cages, currently got 2 hens in one side and 2 cocks in the other with a solid divider between. Mind you, today I found one of the cocks peeking around the end of the divider to see the hens - and one of the hens flirting back! I don't want them breeding quite yet as I want to use my 2016 zfs rings when I get them in January. We have put one pair together (because I'm inpatient) and we want to see what we get crossing our black cheek hen with a normal grey cock. Nice nest built - nothing in it yet though! I'll keep checking......
  2. Penny W

    Show time

    By Penny W,

    I decided I ought to take my birds to a show, to see how they compare so entered a few pairs into the ZFS show in Barry last month. I didn't win anything but my normal were placed in a large class which was nice for me. My lightbacks were my best pair in my eyes - but there were only 2 in that class so coming second didn't really tell me whether they are good or not (the pair that came first went on to win one of the top prizes).
    This weekend it was our local bird club show so Steve and I entered birds, Steve entered 7 budgies, I entered 8 pairs of zebras and 6 Australian finches. A very successful outing, all my birds were placed - except for the lightbacks who were 'wrong classed' as silvers (which they are not!). I admit none of the classes were particularly big - there were 9 entries in the gouldian class so it was very pleasing to come first in that. I came away with prize money, a trophy and 5 rosettes! A good day out.
    I spent a nice day yesterday cleaning out all my breeding cages as nearly all the birds are in the big flights now getting fit and ready for the breeding season. I just have 1 nest of zebras, 3 nests of Bengalese, one pair of Hecks and 1 pair of firetails with eggs at the moment. The Bengies are just starting to hatch - I wait and see whether the others have good eggs or not. The Hecks have not built their nest in the nest box but under the little table that I put their food on so there is no way of checking them without major disruption! I spotted at least 2 eggs a week ago when they both came out to feed. I will have to listen out for chicks! (not sure if I will be able to get them to ring them).
  3. Penny W

    Stafford

    By Penny W,

    Steve and I booked a table for todays Stafford sale, Steve had some budgies to shift, I sorted out some Zebs to go. I put pics of them on one of the Facebook finch sites and sold all but one pair before today! I found another pair of Zebs and decided to shift 3 of my Timor pairs - as my other 2 pairs now have eggs. I also had some spare Bengalese to go. I had also pre-sold 2 hecks grassfinches but the buyer didn't show - isn't that annoying?
    We travelled up yesterday afternoon and stayed in the Holiday Inn just off the M6. We set up this morning - the table wasn't really big enough for all our cages but we made do! We sold most of what we brought and managed - in a very restrained manner - NOT to buy any new birds!!
    My Zebra breeding season has been a bit slow, but over the past few days I have had a nest of 7 penguins hatch, also nests of 4 and 5. Previously most of my clutches had only successfully reared 1 or 2!
    I had one pair of normals who, when the chicks were very young Mum plucked all the feathers off Dad's face! Poor thing looks very odd!. I removed Mum (I thought that if I removed Dad there was a risk of Mum plucking the chicks). Dad has done a fantastic job and this afternoon, when we got back from Stafford I found all his chicks out of the nest looking very good.
    Here's hoping all goes well - I need Timor chicks, I bought 20 Timor sized rings!
     
  4. Penny W

    Stranger in the camp

    By Penny W,

    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?

  5. Penny W
    Well, I have now actually bred a reasonable number of hen zebras. Unfortunately so far I have no normal hens, so my about 20 normal cocks will have no part in my show team for current year bred birds (if I decide to show at all). I have lots of lightback hens, and one lightback cock, several fawn hens and only one fawn cock. The only variety I have pairs of are penguins - I have lots of them!. My best, most prolific pair from last year have not repeated their success this year. The first round - 2 chicks, both thrown from nest, second round 3 chicks, 2 thrown from nest and 3rd removed and fostered with the lightbacks, 3rd and final round, just 2 chicks again, all was going well for 4 days then today one dead chick - empty crop so I have removed the other chick and put in a box with some similar age normal.
    My other finches are doing well, I have now bred 11 gouldians, about 15 hecks, and eventually some Timors. This week I had a nest of cherry finches fledge, and yesterday we spotted 2 young chicks that we were not sure of. I wasn't aware of any other nests. After close watching we realised that the star finches were shadowing these young chicks and feeding them, I hadn't realised they even had eggs! Also this week we have had a nest of diamond firetails hatch - not counting my chickens (or firetails) yet, I've never had a firertail fledge before!
    The chick that was brought up by the silverbills that I mentioned in my last entry has a bib like a hecks but its beak has never gone orange but has stayed grey. Maybe it is a hybrid? One of the silverbills has died (never knew which was the hen and which was the cock).their adoptive chick is devoted to the remaining silverbill and follows it around everywhere, it is very sweet to see!
  6. Penny W

    There is an egg!

    By Penny W,

    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??
  7. Penny W

    Thinking about next year

    By Penny W,

    Well, I paid my subs for the ZFS again and have ordered my rings ready for January, so now it's time to think about who will produce my youngsters! I spent last week sorting out all my stock, I have a few youngsters that were born in July, August and September so I returned them to their respective flights. I then sorted the cocks and hens into 'mine' and those bought in.
    This weekend I sorted out all my breeding cages while observing my birds to decide who should pair with who (referencing my book to ensure I didn't go for close relatives - thank goodness for records!)
    By last night I had  13 pairs of zebras down, also 2 pairs of Hecks and 1 pair of star finches. Up until now the only finch other than zebras that I have successfully managed to breed are Bengalese so I await results - the star finches and one pair of hecks are proven pairs who have bred before (for someone else).
    I have increased my finch collection with some Timors - so have had to order some smaller rings! We are planning to put one or 2 pairs down but the trouble is we don't know how old they are - we were told they are this years birds so may be too young.
    We are planning on putting some nest boxes around in the 'foreign' flight to see whether some of them may breed in that environment. We visited an amazing set up on Saturday (featured in an August edition of Cage and Aviary) which has got us wondering if we can enclose and insulate our outside flight so they can have the space all winter. Watch this space!!
    We have decided to put a conservatory on the back of our house so we can sit and watch the birds in all weathers which will be nice.
    Its amazing to think that I only got my fist birds just 14 months ago, I now have probably about 130 representing 10 different species! Oops - my hobby is taking over!
     
  8. Penny W
    I have bred some lovely zebras this year, the problem is only 2 of them are hens! The 2 hens are fawns, the cocks are normal and penguin so it looks like I won't have any current year pairs to show. I've just put some more pairs down so fingers crossed .......
    I have had a frustrating time with some of my other finches too. I have one pair of Hecks who have had 2 rounds, each round they have fed the babies until they have feathers, then they stop feeding them and the babies die. They currently have 6 eggs so I have taken some of them away and put them under Bengalese. I don't want to foster but I thought I didn't want to watch 6 babies starve to death! I have a pair of diamond firetails, the first round they abandoned the nest a few days before the eggs were due to hatch. The second round I took 2 eggs and put them under a young pair of Bengalese and left 2 eggs with them. They abandoned the nest again so their two eggs didn't hatch, the first one that hatched under the Bengalese seemed to take them by surprise and they didn't feed it, the second one they looked after beautifully - until 2 weeks old when I removed the dummy eggs that were still in the nest which obviously upset them and they abandoned the poor chick. (Lesson learnt - don't change anything in the nest.) My pair of cherry finches hatched 4 and fed none, my timors laid eggs and sat on them for a while, but it obviously got boring so another abandoned nest.
    I did manage to get a clutch of gouldians to 7 weeks old before one died, and then another died a few weeks later (no idea why). I have another nest with 2 gouldian chicks, now 18 days old but today when I checked the box, one was dead with an empty crop, the other appears to still be being fed. I am also trying to breed some more Bengalese but they don't seem to want to lay eggs - maybe I have sexed them wrong and I have all cocks! My masked grassfinches and owl finches have never laid either. I'm hoping the masked grassfinches might breed in the summer outside in the flight.
    Here's hoping for a more positive next update to this blog!
  9. Penny W

    update

    By Penny W,

    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, she was most definitely NOT interested, so we tried our second choice cock - they were all over each other (literally) in a matter of minutes - there are obviously personality traits in finches to be taken into consideration. They now spend almost every minute of the day in the nesting box out of view! (what husseys!!). So we will wait and see! Of the pairs I put down earlier this month, most of them got down to business straight away so I'm concerned they will hatch their chicks too early for my zfs rings - and I thought I had waited long enough to pair them! Oh well, what will be will be!
  10. Penny W

    update

    By Penny W,

    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 the hobby, he lived nearby so we made a weekend of it, collecting his cages on the Saturday, staying overnight in Stafford then a quick whizz in and out of the Stafford Sale on Sunday morning. The finches there were a bit of a disappointment but Steve got some budgies that he was pleased with.
    Yesterday we drove to Kent in a hired lorry (with a 56mph speed limiter), a 4 hour drive, to collect a shed for the birds, problem was we had to dismantle it and it was not just a shed, it was insulated and lined. We got there at 9am, left at 3pm. By the time we had unloaded and returned the lorry to the depot it was almost 10pm, we were exhausted. I'm sure it will be worth it when the shed is built and up and running.
    This evening we took the latest 11 babies from their parents and put them in a bigger cage. I seem to do really well on breeding cocks - hens are a bit of a rarity in my fledgling cage so if anyone has a glut of hens they would like to swap...................????!!!!
  11. Penny W

    update

    By Penny W,

    When I started my blog I had half a dozen finches (late last year). Emmy commented that 6 often turns into many more, well yesterday I had a count up - 84 plus 6 tiny chicks and several eggs being incubated! Hmm, time for a bit of a sort out methinks!
    Our new bird house and aviary is taking shape in the garden, can't wait until it is up and running, we might need a bigger one before we move in if I'm not careful!
     
  12. Penny W

    Yes, I'm still here

    By Penny W,

    it's  been a while, probably 6 months since I updated my blog so I thought I ought to write something!
    I'm currently concentrating on breeding my zebras, the aim is to finish breeding them by the end of April rather than carrying on until October like last year. I paired up early December and went away over Christmas and new year with about 15 pairs down. When I got back from holiday I found I had several pairs sitting on clear eggs. 4 pairs had chicks, 3 lots of 3 and a singleton. One of the sets of 3 had been brought up singlehandedly by Mum as Dad had died when the chicks were just 2 days old. I spent my first weekend after my holiday sorting my pairs again and trying again. I have now rung 34 chicks with another 10 or so chicks just hatches and a dozen or more good eggs in nests. 
    My timors are a proving to be a bit of a challenge, I only have 3 hens so all are paired up. Pair 1 hatched 2 chicks and didn't feed them, they then laid good eggs again but have given up sitting on them. The other 2 hens did nothing for the first month, I then swapped the cocks over and one pair now have 4 eggs - I think they might be clear - but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt for the time being and letting them sit a little longer.
    I tried using Bengalese as fosters but that seemed a waste of time. I have never managed to get my bengies to bring up anyone else's young. Before we went away I had a pair of zebs with 7 good eggs, they were a good pair of zebs so I moved 3 eggs to a pair of bengies replacing their own eggs. They never hatched them, the eggs were still there, cold when I returned from holiday. 
    I put down a pair of birds which (I thought) were a fawn penguin hen and a fawn cock bird who is split penguin. Result - 3 fawn pied cocks! Where did the pieds come from??? I was hoping to get a fawn penguin cock! I have another penguin pair who seem to have produced a pied. There must be some link between penguin and pied. 
    I've had a few pairs of my foreign laying in boxes in the flight. I managed to get 3 diamond firetails hatched, one died before it fledged, the other 2 died, one at 6 weeks, one at 10 weeks. I was disappointed, the parents have gone on to lay a clear round since so still waiting....... I have 5 nests of gouldians and 1 nest of hecks in the flight, so far 3 rung hecks and 3 day-old gouldians. Fingers crossed........
  13. Penny W
    I'm winding down my this years breeding - I've rung about 100 - plenty (too many??) 
    Now for the hard part - I'm determined to show this year so need to sort out a show team - and keep back a breeding team for next year, then try and sell the surplus. I'm pleased with what I have bred so far - apart from the odd pied who has appeared this year - my biggest surprise was a lightback pied from 2 normals!! I have at last bred - and rung one Timor, my Australians have bred, and not raised, several young but I currently have 4 fledged Hecks, and today have rung 3 diamond firetails and 2 stars - just hope they make it to adulthood. It seems the australian don't like breeding in breeding cages but prefer to breed in the outside flight