Aussie Finch Forum

Im pretty new to breeding parsons and i bought a pair a few months ago and this is the first clutch that have hatched and the parents tossed all 3 babies.i have given them live food and soaked seeds.is this just inexperience or a common thing? My friend i bought them off told me it was hard to get them to raise their young and he used to put them under bengalese

Not sure I will be much help. I have kept the Black-rumped Blackthroats (Diggles) for several years and have found them to be exceptional parents.

Like you I feed livefood (mealworms & maggots), soaked seed and greens (cucumber, silverbeet, endive, seeding grasses). Mine take quite a bit of livefood when they have young. Not sure that using Bengalese will make them better parents.

All the best

Alf63

As a broad generalisation, Parsons are very reliable parents. Another person who has been breeding them recently told me that a particular pair of his regularly ejected their young at an early age whilst his other pairs did not. The problem pair in this instance were also acquired from a bloke who fosters his birds under Bengalese. IMO Bengalese fostering of other species strongly selects against parenting ability and generally causes more problems than it solves.

Fostering under Bengalese is one of the variables in Aviculture and persons that buy these birds need to know that the birds he bought were fostered.
Same thing as to what type of aviary the birds were bred in., then a decision could be made as to how you intend to breed them. Also with life food or no life food you can go on and on.

Thanks for all the feedback. I think i will keep letting them try and raise there young even if it means losing some babies.its hard to do here in nz though because they arent readily available. But putting the eggs under bengalese seems like it does more harm than good.i may get more young from it but they will end up the same and not raise there own young.