How to breed yellow hooded (mexican) siskin

[fraudster]

Hi all
Just got myself a pair of yellow siskin. How do you breed these guys? Im in melbourne. When do they come into breeding season? What diet would yirld best results? Will they use cup nests and dont require a bush? Etc? Cheers

[Tiaris]

They will commence breeding in about another month or so (Spring). They are far easier to please diet wise than are Red Siskins. They will eat all the usual finch seeds including millets and canary seed plus enjoy hulled oats, sunflower kernels, niger as ad lib supplements. They absolutely love all greens including broadleaf varieties, thistle heads, grass seed heads , chickweed, etc. & should receive fresh greens daily through the breeding season at least. They will readily take egg & biscuit mixes, softfood mixes, cake, etc. & if these are provided daily during the breeding season, then livefood is not necessary. They will, however, take livefood when they are rearing young - I believe it improves breeding but livefood is not necessary if the above eggfoods, etc are offered as a protein source.
In my opinion, they prefer the forks of brush to nest in but they will readily use nest cups where that is the best site available to them.
Similar breeding biology to canaries - hen builds the nest & incubates, male feeds the hen on the nest & both feed the young. Polygamous if you have extra hens & sufficient aviary space.
Excellent aviary bird with the male's song & attractive plumage a feature.