Aussie Finch Forum

I got a pair of wild-caught European Goldfinches for a bargain and have a few questions that I hope someone can answer:

1: I've got them in a cabinet with the dividers removed, giving them a space of about 40cm high x 40cm deep by 1.5m wide.
1.1: Will they settle into this space?
1.2: Roughly how much time will they take to settle.
1.3: I have a larger cage I can put them in (1.4, wide, 90cm deep, 2m high) but there's currently a pair of canaries in there. Would they be fine to house together when not breeding (don't want hybrids).

2: I've noticed that their facial feathers (the "blaze") is more orange than red. Is this related to age, diet, or genetics? Would colour feeding have any effect? 3: I'd imagine wild caught birds would have more disease and parasites than aviary bred. Already treated with moxidectin in the drinking water and planning on adding 5ml/liter of sulphadim to water on friday. Are there any other health considerations I should be making?

They will settle eventually but that depends on the birds.

I have some that nest and you can almost touch the hen and others just wont settle.

Your cabinets seem ok and if they are going to breed this would suit, in my opinion an aviary with brush is a heap better as they can hide and nest far from you.

As for the colour...some are still going through the moult. They will look crappy until July.


They will go ok with the canaries but if it was me id settle them alone first.

A heap of dandelion and chick weed would serve them better than the moxi, again this is just my opinion and method.

Glad you have given them a try. They are hard to breed when you look at the price of them but they are the best singers and look a million bucks when in full colour.

Good luck

Steve

I've only ever had avairy bred ones. But it would seem to me that if they are wild the more space and hiding places the better. So maybe put the Goldies in the avairy with lot of brush in one corner and the canarys, who be domesticated anyway will be more flexible into the breeding cage.
LML

Was at a place in the south side of Sydney on Mothers Day, (Ramsgate). He had at least 50 wild caught goldfinches. What got me was how settled they were and their colours. He showed me a pair of cage bred birds and they had nowhere near the colour of the wild caught birds. Go figure. Didn't ask the price because they don't interest me but he did have some birds, some were little, yellow like a little yellow sparrow and some were larger. Yellow singers? Looked good, but once Again not interested.

Ken.

I have a pair of Goldfinches with many varieties of finches and 2 male canaries. Two Goldfinches stay together at all time, hiding in branches.
If any bird comes close male is screeching at them however no real fighting.
Back in Europe people keep male Goldfinches in small dark cage ( I don't like that) so they keep singing and singing.

ShaneGowland wrote:I got a pair of wild-caught European Goldfinches for a bargain and have a few questions that I hope someone can answer:

1: I've got them in a cabinet with the dividers removed, giving them a space of about 40cm high x 40cm deep by 1.5m wide.
1.1: Will they settle into this space?
1.2: Roughly how much time will they take to settle.
1.3: I have a larger cage I can put them in (1.4, wide, 90cm deep, 2m high) but there's currently a pair of canaries in there. Would they be fine to house together when not breeding (don't want hybrids).

2: I've noticed that their facial feathers (the "blaze") is more orange than red. Is this related to age, diet, or genetics? Would colour feeding have any effect?

orange.jpg

3: I'd imagine wild caught birds would have more disease and parasites than aviary bred. Already treated with moxidectin in the drinking water and planning on adding 5ml/liter of sulphadim to water on friday. Are there any other health considerations I should be making?

Hi shane I also would recommend breeding in an aviary , little bit more of a challenge but thats what its all about. I recently bread from two wild caught goldfinches after two seasons of playing around with breading pairs and loss of young in
nest. Mine always preferred to nest in the out side covered flights in natural growing brush ,males defend the area but not overly aggressive .what I found that really gets them going is dandelion heads with the white tips showing (whole) as many as you can supply and sprouted cannola sead,hope this may help, has been a couple o months since posted, which way did you go. ps if you have a lot of dandelion heads break them open as the rest of your finches will also go crazy over them.

In my opinion you have a better chance of settling them in the cage you have (what I used to do years ago)...then once settled you could release to an aviary to breed...otherwise you may find they remain flighty...

My father-in-law once had some Goldfinches nesting in a tree outside his house & he asked me what they were. I told him what they were, that they were related to canaries (which he breeds) & that they could be reared under canaries. He fostered the 4 eggs under one of his best canary hens which she reared to independence & despite a canary breeding cabinet being the only world known to them they were still as "wild" as trapped adults. They never settled into captive life comfortably at all. I was quite surprised about this. When I saw them as nearly coloured sub adults they behaved exactly as if they were wild-caught (thrashed about the cage in a panic whenever closely approached).

The wild caught birds are often affected by megabacteria ( Macrorhabdus) which can be difficult to treat. Be wary of birds which are "going light".

The wild caught birds are often affected by megabacteria ( Macrorhabdus) which can be difficult to treat. Be wary of birds which are "going light".

Unfortunately the hen passed away about a week ago from what I suspect was an infection of some sort. The cock bird responded well to antibiotics and is now quite happy in a large-ish sized aviary. He is still very flighty and I'm not 100% sure he's going to survive the winter, but I'm doing everything I can to give him the best chance.

I might try to purchase aviary bred birds in the future, which hopefully are a little more hardy and docile.