Diamond Firetails

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bazwang
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Posts: 28
Joined: 08 Jan 2017, 19:14
Location: blaxland/blue mountains

G'day after some advice here

I had a nest of 3 diamonds fledge, all big and healthy, all 3 came out of the nest during the day for about a week,and return at nightfall. I noticed that the parents would only feed the fledglings if they where inside the nest, from what I noticed anyhow.
During this time all the cock bird did was chase the hen about with a blade of grass and try and get her to go to nest again and sit.
I had not seen or heard the young for about 2 or 3 days and noticed the cock has driven the hen back to nest and she is sitting again.
I checked the original nest and all 3 where inside dead, not fed.
So i'm assuming the cock bird was to busy trying mate again and the hen was busy sitting to feed them.
would this be due to it being their first clutch ? or is the cock bird a rogue and to aggressive? should I catch him up after the next ones hatch so he doesn't drive her back to nest and lets her feed them until they are self dependant ?

cheers
Diamonds/fawn painteds/red face red winged pytilia
STUART WHITING
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Posts: 343
Joined: 03 Jun 2017, 18:30
Location: England

Hi there mate,

This is not unusual with many species of finches, here in England we've exactly the same problem with exhibition greenies that are bred,

What many of us tend to do now is use a row of small flights, the flights have the usual little doors on the front but have a small door or hatch in all of the side walls of all the flights,

We allow all finches to nest and as soon as the hens have started to incubate the eggs we remove the cock birds, we don't need to go into the flight and disturb the sitting hens as we just simply coax the cock birds into the adjacent fight and with the use of a pull string or wooden slider board we close the small side doors or side hatch,

The hens can still see the cock bird and will normally continue to incubate, hatch, rear and wean the youngsters on their own,

This is practiced very much in England as at first we got the idea many years ago from some of the very top canary men who also breed this way and then decided to try it with various finches and the results have proven to be very good, we don't obviously do this with all finches but more so with birds that are known and have a bit of a reputation for being awkward more so with the cocks ego.

Be lucky
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