Aussie Finch Forum

Nice to see you're not aiming too high, Netsurfer!! ;)

I wouldn't agree to those four species Netsurfer.
My reasoning is the birds are all rare in Aviculture and need a very experienced and dedicated person the manage,keep alive and breed them.
Secondly why would you put birds of that level in with a mixed collection,surely they should be the one pair per aviary class to eliminate any meddling from other birds
and so you can make sure they are getting A1 attention.
My personal choice would be Red Faced P/F's,they are active,easily bred and a real contrast in colour and will use a nestbox to rear their chicks as well as the brush.
Also they won't break your bank and there is good young breeding stock available.Make sure they are young birds if you can.

Netsurfer wrote:For natives, I would go for the Beautiful Firetails or the Red-eared Firetails. For Foreign I would go for the Redpolls or the Euro Siskins if you can find them! (Providing you have deep pockets and money is "no object"!)

Are there any redpolls or euro siskins left in Australia?.....

Well eorix beat me to what i was gonna say.

You could try any of the 3 common parrot finch species. Or yea goulds a painteds breed fairly freely. And longtails are a good one? But if you wanted a real challenge! But still a hardy bird i would say redbrows for sure. Might be cheap birds but if you can consistently breed them then as far as im concernd you can hold your head high. which unfortunatly i cant with them. Im still trying my heart out.

Ben

Myzomela wrote:It is totally understandable to want to try to breed as many species as you can Superfinch- it's human nature.

But don't think that just because you've bred from one pair of a species that the challenge is gone. If you like a species and are good at breeding them then the challenge is to build up a stud of good quality birds of that species-if you have the space. The cordons you mentioned are just such an example. There are lots of "average" quality cordons around.
If you were to have a number of carefully selected, good quality pairs, you would have no trouble selling their offspring.

This is not a criticism- just an alternative way of looking at the hobby.

I totally agree with you on this one but i have very limited space and i'm lucky to have had breeding success with many of the ones I have tried. I've only got into finches in the last couple of years so before I settle on perfecting/specialising on one type i'd like to have the chance to experience some of the many species out there.

In the future I have many plans to expand on my space availability and once I've decided which finch to settle on I can then focus on producing the best finchies that I can

For now i'm just as happy to sample what's out there and see how I go plus the sole purpose of the hobby for me isn't just about breeding, it's more the enjoyement of watching my birds be happy.

E Orix wrote:I wouldn't agree to those four species Netsurfer.
My reasoning is the birds are all rare in Aviculture and need a very experienced and dedicated person the manage,keep alive and breed them.
Secondly why would you put birds of that level in with a mixed collection,surely they should be the one pair per aviary class to eliminate any meddling from other birds
and so you can make sure they are getting A1 attention.
My personal choice would be Red Faced P/F's,they are active,easily bred and a real contrast in colour and will use a nestbox to rear their chicks as well as the brush.
Also they won't break your bank and there is good young breeding stock available.Make sure they are young birds if you can.

I was thinking the RFPF but I wasn't sure if they would go well with the red siskins??? I need to read up on a few things so i can make the right decision - then I need to find a good breeder.

Netsurfer wrote:For natives, I would go for the Beautiful Firetails or the Red-eared Firetails. For Foreign I would go for the Redpolls or the Euro Siskins if you can find them! (Providing you have deep pockets and money is "no object"!)

Unfortunately money is an object !!! its savings towards a bigger avairy lol!!!

superfinch rfps are great mate and would be fine with red siskins. I just got mine not so long ago and there building already hopefully i breed a few.

Lukec wrote:

Netsurfer wrote:For natives, I would go for the Beautiful Firetails or the Red-eared Firetails. For Foreign I would go for the Redpolls or the Euro Siskins if you can find them! (Providing you have deep pockets and money is "no object"!)

Are there any redpolls or euro siskins left in Australia?.....

I haven't heard anything about the Euro Siskins for quite some time, I might have been the last one with the Redpolls in NSW but cannot say, there may be some in Tasmania and Victoria, the problem is by the time these birds get to me they're too old and most time infertile. I might have been one of the last to have bred the Grey Singers in NSW before some greedy guys stole the hen from my Aviary but anyhow I haven't heard of anyone bred Grey Singers in recent years. Same with Large Green Singers, the last one I saw was a male (probably old and infertile even then)at Living Jungle he wanted $300 for it, but that was long time ago.

Can confirm at least 1 pair of grey singers is still out there