single pairs or multiples?

[mr.fox]

Howdy. Just wondering what your opinion is regarding the housing of some species of foriegn finches as multiple pairs. I keep red faced PF Cordon Bleus & Cubans. The Cubans I would only ever keep as single pair to the aviary, but can the RFPF be kept as say a group of 2-3pr in amixed collection? What works best for you??

[Buzzard-1]

A single pair or 3 pair or more work depending on room, but 2 pair don't work in 98% of cases.

[mr.fox]

also heard of people running trios ( 1 cock/2 hens) Don't beleive it would work most times. But there are always exceptions.

[E Orix]

Red Face pair bond so I run even numbers, I agree from the earlier comment 1 pr or 3 or more pairs.
Blue Face don't pair bond in my opinion,at one stage I was running 5 hens to 2 cockbirds and it worked well.
The cockbirds would concentrate on the non sitting hens and seemed to let the sitting hens alone to feed themselves and their young.
These days I just run a big colony and they seem to sort themselves out.
As for Cubans 1 pr is the norm but I have seen 5 pairs plus all in the one aviary breeding and even preening each other.
I must admit I have not tried it.

[avishoot]

used to run multiple pairs, usually 6, and a spare hen in a large aviary . the reasoning for the spare hen was that if you lost a hen with even pairs then which cock bird would you remove? i would advise against introducing a new hen to a breeding colony due to the aggressive nature of rfpf cock birds in breeding condition. this proved to be an extremely successful method after some refinement,such as placing many more nest boxes in the aviary than the amount of pairs . the boxes were placed at various heights and spaced evenly throughout the aviary . if you want to impress a visitor throw in a hand full of green seed heads and watch these jewels shine in the sun !!