Aussie Finch Forum

4 months on from adding 5 to my original 2 and I am back to 4. The new ones just turn up dead on the floor for no apparent reason. And no chicks.
LML

Now have 6. 1 from my original bloodline and 5 from a 2nd source. Because even though I bought them from 2 people. When I got the 2nd lot it turned out she had bought the originals from the same chap I had. Both of them had had breeding success. Though he had more success than her. Have done a lot of rearranging in the past couple of months, to give them less avairy competition. Now lets see if the changes and heavy green feeding will trigger some breeding action.
LML

I've had my Black Rumped DB's for around 9 months now, had a dodgy attempt, another attempt which was going well until after 3 weeks they abandoned it completely and all the eggs were clear, now they are having another go

I have a pair of double Bars in my avairy mixed with 4 adult zebra finches. They aren’t breeding and I am sure they are opposite sexes and old enough. In the avairy I have 4 baskets for them. What should I do to make them breed. Different boxes or...

Thanks in advance

watch that the zebs don't cross with the double bars

Still nothing from mine, but they are showing considerable interest in the seeding grass and the wire cylinder with brush in. So heres hoping.
LML

The Zebras will probably dominate and out-breed the Double Bars to an extent when the aviary will be crowded with much more Zebs than DBs. The best you can do is provide lots of nest sites. Also, as Mr. Skeeter said, watch out for hybridisation between the two.

I just bred my first round of Double bars mate, but mine are the black rumped form which are a bit different, but here are some guidelines for breeding good DB's:
- Colony breed them with up to 3 or 4 pairs
- Plenty of brush and brush cylinders provided

and most importantly....

- Leave them alone and make sure to disturb them as little as possible

Best of Luck!!

over the yrs Ive had varied success , so 2 yrs ago I setup 2 colonies of double bars in 2 separate aviaries, One mixed and one gouldians only. After 2yrs I caught them all up, the colony with the mixed aviary bred none. The other colony with the gouldians bred 20. So I kept 10 young which I sexed using width of head brightness and width of bars all standard forms of Id . I also had them dna tested . I wrote down my guesses and cross checked them with the dna tests 8 out 10 were correct however two of my cocks turned out to be hens. So instead of 5pr I now have 3 pr with 4 spare hens . They are back in with the gouldians and have started breeding. The mixed aviary had weavers, wrens, cubans and tricolored nuns. The wrens and weavers were removed 6mths before removing the double bars. Well its nice to know I had an 80% success rate when I sexed them by eye. Yet In future I intend to dna check any double bars I intend to breed with as pairs usually breed better then same sexed birds. The gouldians and double bars seem to be a good match up as both bred well. The double bars in the mixed aviary seemed fine but obviously weren't. Unless of course they were all the same sex? They all received the same food seed and maggots, they all shared the same weather and were in open outdoor aviaries.