Aussie Finch Forum

Hope you have more luck this time.I dont have much luck with mine,they keep building nests aswell.

Well this third nest seems to be the one as they've been sitting tight now for close to two weeks whihc should be enough time to lay eggs and incubate so I should have the answer soon. My only concern is the toad that I go rid of a few days ago may have affected fertility as I know that there are a lot of nests cold, desserted clutches in the aviary at the moment and the toad is my best guess for my lack of success over the last few months. If I don't hear anything by the end of next week I'll have to snoop. I think changing the brush gets them interested in nest building and a good clean out might remove any residual toad toxin too if they forrage on the floor.

good luck this time. hope things improve for you without that damn toad in there

As far as I know none of my birds have ever seen a meal worm but I put 20 in an 8cm souffle dish today before I took the kids ice-skating and there were none when I came back. I don't think the quails can get onto the feeding plaform so my suspicion falls on the diamonds.

remembering they dont like sunlight an they might have scrambled for safety. but it could be a sign they have bubs........pete

The meals worms can't get out of the ceramic souffle dish I present them in. I watched today after I left the aviary and I suppose you wouldn't be surprised if I told you it was the cut-throats that came down and grabbed them! they dropped a few larvae which were quickly picked up by the king quails. Still I live in hope that the diamonds are my quiet achievers.

My diamond's eat quite a few. Also making their third nest but have noticed this new one is bigger with a long entrance tunnel so fingers crossed.

GregH wrote:Still I live in hope that the diamonds are my quiet achievers

I'm hoping my are the same. It's funny that my quails had 10 eggs and all young are about 4 weeks old so the fight for any dropped worms is more a real free for all.
Good luck though Greg.

Well I went to investigate as I said I would and was confronted by small red-tailed green rat-snake so I soon forgot about looking at the diamonds nest. It bolted into a thicket of nests which I tore apart and eventually caught it. Luckily it hadn't yet eaten so I popped it in a cage for release later (the kids at out school here loved it). Anyway with all the commotion the diamond had hopped off teh nest and I stuck my fingers in to find only a single egg! My bet is it's not even theirs. The diamond soon returned to the nest and is sitting tight again. Should I take the egg and/or destroy the nest to get them to go down again?

In the mean time I've started putting Ferti-vit http://www.orlux.be/NUTRI/Nutrition/Pag ... 3&pro=4397in the water of all my aviaries as I had it recommended by a breeder and shop owner here. Has anyone used it and what do you think about such vitamin suppliments?

I haven't bred Diamonds but, if this is their third nest stopping them might stop the season.
And one chick is lots better than none so if it was me I would let them be.
Others with more experience with Diamonds may have a different opinion.
LML

Just to clarify - they didn't lay in the first two nest. I suspect that since these birds have red anodised aluminium rings that they came in from Europe and aren't bred here - either way they would have been in cabinets rather than an aviary I surmise and so may never have had to build a nest for generations. Maybe they were practicing. One egg seems odd. I wonder if I've brought somone else's problem?

I broke open the egg and was surprised to see an almost fully formed embryo so perhaps all hope is not lost although I may have a sibling pair since the rings are identical. While this is one explanation for the low fertility I can't help wondering if the general supression of fertility in the aviary was brought about by the cane toad that coincided with the drop in fertility. I just hope the Fertivit makes a difference now.