Can you pick me the perfect finch!?

[Jayburd]

chats are mainly insectivorous and nectivorous but they might take some fruit

[Buzzard-1]

$$$$$$$$$$$$$ NPWS

[desertbirds]

With an aviary that size,as already suggested you can house small colonies of quite a few species.The only problem with zebs is you will be forever trapping them out.How about a colony of Saints and some Pin tailed Wydahs.Half a dozen pairs of Lesser RedBrows would be awesome.With the size aviary your talking about the options are endless and many species that are best kept as one pair per avairy should be fine with more than one pair.Cubans finches may go well in a colony in an cage that size.Your fruit will be fine and i will be suprised if the birds have a go at it.Black Breasted Button would be ideal to keep the insects at bay a bit and you could run five or six cock birds to a hen.

[ecogreen]

The vegie gardens will be fully mesh enclosed anyway so not worried about the chance of them being eaten, the only time they'll be open to the birds is when they are fallow so that the chooks can turn them over before they are replanted. As I said I follow strict quarantine procedures so any birds entering, whether finches or chooks will be kept seperate for atleast 4 weeks after they are purchased. The chooks will be treated with Ivermec spot on during quarantine which should ensure they are free of nasties I won't be adding any parrots to it, first and foremost it's an orchard so anything that goes in there will go in with a purpose and on a trial basis, I have other large aviaries whch I'll be setting up down the back of the block(where our house garden will eventually be) that are around the 3m X 2.5m size so if they just aren't working at all in the orchard then there is the opion to move them to a more traditional aviary. I'll look into some of the other suggestions. I want to set up feeding stations up on metal poles to keep feed away from mice and the chooks will be fed in an enclosed area and should pick up any seed that falls from the feed stations during the day which will help to discourage mice a little too. We won't have many chooks, I keep 10 japanese quail for eggs at the moment and we use a mixture of quail eggs and bought chook eggs so don't need many chooks to supplement our egg needs, they are more to turn over and fertilise the vegie gardens as the quail aren't as efficient at that.

As a bonus our dogs are very bird friendly but keen mousers so they'll help keep mice away for me too.

[Jayburd]

sounds like you've got it made!!

[Jayburd]

I'd put in a colony of grenadier weavers, a colony of saints and some pin tailed whydahs, chats, blue caps, colonies of gouldians and masks, and some purple crowned lorikeets

[desertbirds]

Chats would be ideal.

[Jayburd]

nice pic almost thought it was a scarlet honeyeater for a sec

[iaos]

they are more to turn over and fertilise the vegie gardens as the quail aren't as efficient at that.

Black Breasted Button Quail are known for their earthmoving ability.

[ecogreen]

Not quite as good for eggs though unfortunately, I don't think the chooks are optional unfortunately, I'll be getting well bred healthy chooks from a good breeder though so I can't see them being an issue as a group of four or five in that amount of space.

Are chats hard to come by? They are very sweet but I must admit I start to get a bit hesitant when prices for pairsof birds start running into the hundreds...