Aussie Finch Forum

here in melbourne its getting pretty cold and so after picking up yet another tossed chick off the floor, i decided it was time to call it quits for the season and stop feeding them any livefood. i checked the nests to confirm their were no chicks left, removed any stray eggs and cut them off the mealworms.

but the birds don't seem to get the picture. the ruddies have gone to nest again (in a new one) and the OB's are still busy constructing theirs. it wasn't until late in the summer that the new pairs settled in the new aviary so maybe thats a factor?...

what do you guys suggest? do you remove nests over winter? is breeding over winter that bad? (i do hate loosing hens to egg-binding). when do others breed/rest their birds? if at all?

i do have a second ruddy pair that are being held in an indoor avairy and i was thinking of breeding them over the winter as they are indoors. good idea?

and lastly, with the shorter days i just don't get home from work in time to feed a second batch of mealies - is that possibly why i got so many tossed chicks in the first place? and if so, is the whole thing a pointless exercise anyway?.....

It's an interesting question and I'm looking forward to responses. I'm in the same boat, mainly due to the lack of day light, not the cold weather...
Cheers,
Tim

timh wrote:It's an interesting question and I'm looking forward to responses. I'm in the same boat, mainly due to the lack of day light, not the cold weather...
Cheers,
Tim

With my gouldians I have 2 sets of lights installed on the wall next to the aviary

Normal light that stays on all night so birds can eat if they want during the night

Second set of flood lights that I turn on at 5 am

I'll feed them their greens boiled egg and grasses at 5am...and they go straight for it

This way the chicks are fed early in the morning before the sun comes up

I do it 2 ways depending on the aviary & mix of species;
1.If I'm ceasing the whole aviary, I stop livefood, remove all brush & other nesting sites/materials, & cut back all vegetation growing in the aviary & give the aviary a cleanup. When you want to start them up again start feeding livefood a week before putting back new brush & nesting materials.
2. Given I have a decent amount of holding aviary space, I replace summer breeders with winter breeders to & from the holding & breeding aviaries to keep most breeding aviaries going. The holding avaiaries receive no livefood or nesting facilities.
More recently I use 2. When I used 1, I did it mostly at the hottest part of Summer which suited my mild Winter locality but I now have a few more strictly Summer breeding species so use 2 instead.
Whichever method is used I recommend to never split up established breeding pairs during the break. I tried this for a couple of times & it was a disaster to the ongoing breeding results of my better breeding pairs of some challenging species.