Double Bars & Cold

[Dmitroid]

Hey all,

One of my aviaries is a mixed aviary of goulds, scarlet chested, stars and canaries. A few days ago I bought a pair of double bars from a bird store and the female died the first night. I live in Melbourne and the temp got down to about 1c. The bird store was nice enough to give me a replacement female, but I found the pair both dead on the aviary floor this morning. The temp dropped to -1c last night.

The aviary is 4mx4m and protected by plastic panels on all but one side that faces east, to catch the sunshine.

I thought double bars were supposed to be a better cold fairing species? I’d understand if they were CBs or PFs… The goulds and other birds are all loving life and doing fine! Do people cage breed double bars? It’s the only explanation I can think of for such consistent losses from the same source… it must be the temperature… The birds were also kept outside at the bird store but were in an enclosed area. Many of the birds that live in the aviary come from the same bird store and were kept in the same conditions.

I’m obviously heartbroken because I feel responsible… I love the species and want to keep them, and this sucks so much… I drove for hours to pick them up and then hours again for the replacement female… any information from people that have experience keeping double bars would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Dmitri

[BrettB]

I have bred a lot of Double Bars , but can not say I have ever lost one due to the cold.
This is Perth, so we do not get sub zero temperatures.
All my losses have come with moving the birds. DB's seem to be prone to "stress".
They also tend to use roosting nests at night, often many huddled into the one nest.

It may have been a combination of factors, strange environment , lack of a roosting nest, lots of much larger birds in the aviary.
Even under the best of environments I tend to avoid moving birds mid winter.

Better luck next time
Cheers
Brett

[finchbreeder]

Mine seem to cope with the cold fine. Though what Brett said about temps here on the west coast not going below 0
And regretfully my avairies do not face optimum north/east, due to the neighbours fence being there.
But also like Brett, I like to aquire birds in Spring or Autumn if possible.

[Alf63]

I live in central Victoria and have experienced numerous sub zero temperatures this winter.

To date I have had no problems with any of my finches including Doublebars or Parrot Finches.

My only guess would be perhaps the birds were not acclimatised to he conditions.

Being from a shop you have no idea how long they were there or the original source location

[Craig52]

In my experience you should never buy birds in Winter especially from pet shops. You don't know where they have come from and how they have been bred before you got them if infact someone bred them. I don't even buy finches from Winter bird expo's like Melbourne because you can guarantee that they will die due to stress and cold weather.
Always buy finches late Spring and Summer so they can slowly acclimatise back into Victoria's Winter.

[finchbreeder]

I have had Double Bars off and on (mostly on) for most of the last 20+ yrs.
One thing I have found is that they do not do well unless there is a minimum of 3 of them.
And more is definately better.
So I would recommend waiting till Spring and getting 2 pair or 3 pair.
Good luck - they are such a sweet little finch.

[Dmitroid]

Thanks for your advice everyone. At least I can put it down to experience, and it’s great to know that the species is thriving for so many of you, even in such cold conditions.

I’ll wait until mid spring to try again. I’ll get at least 2 pairs and make sure there are nests for roosting. It sounds like I’ll have better luck if I’ve adequate time to fatten them up and acclimate to the colder conditions.