Aussie Finch Forum

Just thought I would share a couple of photos of my new tri coloured parrot finches. Hard to get a quality photo with the iPhone as they are much more active then my gouldians. Any tips on food, nesting ect. would be appreciated.

Congratulations, they're great birds.

Requested tips:
- Mine bred in a budgie-style nesting box and constructed the nest out of larger pieces of grass; not the finer grass that Gouldians are fond of.
- Obesity is a big problem with these. Limit commercial soft foods, egg and biscuit and live food. Provide lots of flying space.
- Mine love to bathe a lot. 2-3 times a day in nice weather.

They are great little birds. I can spend hours watching mine. Mine prefer baskets over boxes but have used both. Again prefer coarse grass to build with and feathers to line the nest with. As long as they have plenty of room then I have not found obesity a problem. Only when moved to smaller cages.

Great aviary bird. Breed best as young pairs (I wouldn't buy older birds at all), prone to obesity as already mentioned so minimise softfoods & livefoods until actually breeding & also hulled oats, canary seed, sunflower kernel. Breed best in warm weather but will have a go most of the year if not fat. Mine nest in brush mostly & love heaps of feathers (emu feathers especially) for nesting. Quite shy & as you've found out very active bird. Love all green foods especially grass heads & leb cucumber.

Will also readily hybridise with Blue-faced PF.

i find these guys nails grow long and fast. as already stated they are shy and never stop moving so it can be hard to notice if they are getting too long. as i use fine mouseproof wire, the long, hooked nails can get caught in the wire the bird thrashes around and breaks a leg, foot etc.

the same thing happened to my cock grenadier weaver

they also, like gouldians, don't hesitate to bite!

They are pretty birds, I have already spent many hours watching them. I love how active they are, like they are A.D.D. I put 1 pair in a 1.8m x 1.5m aviary with a pair of breeding gouldians so I hope they have enough room not to put on the beef but in saying that they will be eating my gouldians diet atm which consists of avigrain blue, herb mix, greens and grain, frozen green seed, egg shell, charcoal, egg and biscuit, cuttlebone and greens. The wind and cold weather has me concerned, not sure how cold hearty these birds are but so far so good.

Had my first escapee today, absolutely devastated. In a rush to feed the birds before dark and opened up the rotating feed station stuck my hand in one side to hang up some lebonese cucumber and through the open side of the feed station out shot the tri coloured parrot finch hen. I usually hold my hand up over the hole but got complacent. It had to be her, not one of my 100+ gouldians. The cock bird started calling continuously and she came back into the lemon tree about 20minutes later and was calling back but it was too dark to do anything about it. Going to go into work late tomorrow and see if she try's to come back for a morning feed. Probably only a 0.1% chance of catching her but worth the effort.

oh man that sucks.

how long have they been in the aviary and how many birds in there? you say 100+....is that for real? because the best chance to get her back is to catch up all the birds and open the aviary door. up to you to weigh up how worth it that is.

It was in a small aviary with a pair of gouldians so that sounds like a good idea but time is the issue as I have a meeting today at 9am that I can't miss. Most of my gouldians are this years young and in a holding aviary. Been out the back since the sun started rising and all I can here is butcher birds calling so not a good sign.