aviary 1.
this is where i keep the good stuff and upon opening the door this young fawn pied was sitting in the bush about 2 metres away. first day out of the nest. i was pretty happy at first but a closer look showed this youngster was 3 to 4 days too early. there are at least 5 pair or more of diamond with nest/eggs and 3 or more pairs have young.
the hen is fawn pied and the cock is normal split fawn and pied. i think 3 things are against this one going the distance
1. weather
2. first time parents
3. more important - out of the nest way too early.i've seen this happen a bit and the end results are not positive. then you add the cold wet factor!
aviary 2.
3 pair split blue gouldian housed here. to date these have bred 15 young all flying about including 2 blues and 1 pastel. a few days ago i got into this aviary and there was a young blue on the floor-about equal in age to the above fawn pied diamond.
went inside and got a torch. these slums are pretty hard to see in. once inside the back section i disturbed one of the split blues ( parents had built their own nest and a pretty rough one too) as she flew off i saw 4 young in her nest. not sure of the colours but they looked about 10 to 12 days old. so in theory way too young to house this young blue.
i looked into another few sections (there are 6 in total) still couldn't find the blue's nest. so i then headed to the top part of the enclosure.
inside that section i opened a nesting box and out flew the yellow back split blue. she is the mother of the young pastel and her mate is a dilute split blue.
anyway this time not much luck colour wise in her nest. 4 young in total about 15 or so days old - 2 green and 2 yellow. this is as close as i could get so had little choice but put the blue in there.
yesterday the young blue was out flying about with a yellow and green. a few minutes later i saw the dilute cock feeding him. it appears it didn't worry him who he was feeding. plus i had the other two young ones on the floor. at the end of the day i bundled them up and back into the nest box.
today and in bad weather conditions they were again on the floor. so will see what happens there. it looks like those 3 pair will produce about 20 young for the season and for next season that will get me motivated to get serious with the blues.
i plan to throw all these young together possible and splits together and see what happens. although they are only worth head value i'm thinking maybe they might exhibit good parenting skills as they have been housed with them from birth.
as for the blues if they go the distance - we all know about the moult - i will be importing their partners from another state.
aviary 3.
large colony of fawn diamonds here. over the past couple of weeks about 5 young have emerged from their nests. just the past week ive been listening to variety of tones from feeding/begging chicks. today i entered the aviary and within seconds bang! bang! crash! from what i could count - best part of 7 to 10 young flying madly about.
any-one with diamonds can tell you about the sickening feeling when you hear/view them crash into the wire or any solid matter.
so i placed the food in their containers and got out as quick as i could. these fawns are excellent breeders and when their young emerge there are well and truly ready for the outside world. once out of the cage i nailed a dark cover across the entrance to calm them down for a few days or so.after that everything will be fine.
although the above info on my day might read well and sounds like i'm doing ok i really think due to the elements of nature i will most likely be picking some up off the ground/floor.
you might think i'm not too positive but i think it's luck that plays it's hand in this game. you can give them the very best housing food etc but controlling the weather etc is another story.
now at time i too have had plenty of luck and sometimes it's been pretty bad too lol