matcho wrote:Forget about the autopsy Zippy, after this length of time there would be F.A to examine to even identify if it was "your" quail unless you were a forensic scientist. I had a bit of a thing this arvo. I have had for the past week a new chick from the local Butcherbirds hanging around, good looker, sings beautiful and with this wet weather here he comes and spends most of the day sitting on the chair in my back decking just outside the kitchen singing away. Fearless. He hasn't shown any aggression towards the aviary and in actual fact the noisy miners have twigged out because of him. Unfortunately this afternoon went down to check the birds and there was one of my better gould cocks dead on the ground. On examination he had been hit in the guts and near gutted, only one culprit as far as I am concerned. As dirty as I am he will survive and move on in the next week or so to find his own territory. Funnily enough the adult birds cause me no grief at all . Last time this happened was a couple of years ago when I lost a bird or two but took iit in my stride. They are doing their best. Like the "Field of Dreams "movie... build it and they will come. Mice, hawks, rats etc etc. Put it this way, if you have grain you will get rodents (mice/rats). If you have rodents you will gets snakes, especially given the area you live in. It is a fact of life.
Ken.
Couldn't disagree more with the notion of build it & they will come. Build it mouseproof & you won't get even 1 mouse inside, build it mouseproof & you won't get even 1 snake inside. Build it Butcherbird proof & your local birds of prey can live unharmed as can your finches. I've said it many times before on this forum, but having a 100% mouseproof aviary is simply a matter of attention to the finest detail in aviary design and construction. ie. no gap greater than 6mm at wire level and no gaps at all below 1m height, solid & impregnable footings below ground, use of extra barriers between the aviary mesh walls & ceilings & the outside where predators live. As an example, my current large aviary complex has been in use for over 12 years now & has never had a mouse, snake, cat or bird of prey enter or attack the finches simply because it is physically impossible for them to do so. Where I live there are plenty of all of them except cats.
