Hi

[framed]

I just found this forum and thought it would be a good place to aquire information about my new hobby.
I have recently given an aviary 3m long 2.5 m wide and 2.5m high this has rekindled my love of finches I had as a kid. As a kid in the late 60's I spent a lot of my spare time trapping trapping red browed finches, double bars and bull finches in their hundreds I had a small aviary but most of these birds were sold to local petshops for 25 cents each.The introduction of bird licensing put a stop to this practise for me as the petshops would no longer buy my birds.When I reached my teens my interest in birds waned, but I kept telling myself I should find the time to continue this hobby. Well the time finally arrived when I was given my aviary and stocked it with some finches.
Around 12 months ago I went to the Fairfield bird sale and purchased:
6 uncoloured young gouldians, I could never afford gouldians as a kid, they aere almost the same price then as they are nowand were extremely fragile as I think most were wild birds trapped in the Northern Territory.
1 pair normal Zebras
1 pair charcoal zebras
3 pair red stars, another species I could not afford as a kid.
1 pair King quail
From these birds I now have around 20 zebras which have all come from my pair of normal zebras, my charcoal are yet breed.2 pair of gouldian have just fledged 9 young between them, my original 6 ended up being 2 male and 4 female so I am hoping for a few extra males from these young.
My star finches are yet to breed.
My quail have raised a young male and 2 female, then my original female died.

I have now got to the point where my aviary is getting rather crowded and I am thinking of getting another one around the same size. I think I will only keep gouldians in the new aviary and zebras in the other and will sell my star finches.
I have enjoyed my 12 months with my new aviary a lot more than my expriences as kid and hopefully any information I can get from this forum will increase my enjoyment of my feathered friends.

Cheers.
Framed.

[Steven]

Hey Framed welcome to the forum your keeping a lot of nice finches there would love to see some pics if you have any

We have friendly and knowledgeable members here that can help you with all your questions

[gomer]

welcome framed,sounds like your reintroducing to finches is going well.

[Page0044]

Hi Framed and welcome to AFF, some nice finches you have, you will have to show us some pics sometime.

Greg

[framed]

Thank you all for your warm welcomes.

[Mickp]

Hi & welcome to the forum

[fincher]

hi and welcome to the forum framed
thanks chris

[Pete Sara]

hi framed . should be a wealth of information here. just ask and someone shall answer, i am always learning something new.....pete

[Page0044]

Same here Pete there is always something to learn

[GregH]

Hi "Framed" I'm also new to the forum and my return to finch aviculture is in similar cirumstances and even the birds you have are similar. I wouldn't give up on the Stars yet - I have only just sucessfully bred them after having them for over a year. They are one of my favourite birds and incorrectly I attributed my failures to a history of poor genetis and fostering but in the end my problem was me. From my limited experience Stars have to mature first which can take about 6-8 months even if you purchase fully coloured youngsters. Stars like to build their own nest and so must be provided with a range of green and dried grasses and small white feathers. Then of course they need somewhere to build the nest so your aviary will have to be brushed or planted. Then the hardest thing for me is not looking. My Stars call to warn the other off the nest as soon as I approach the aviary so I never know if they are sitting but put your fingers in the nest and they will abandon even quite mature young. Gouldians and Zebras are very forgiving of inspections. A word of warning from my experience here is that on two occasions Gouldians have parasitised my Star's nests and they are sitting on one lot right now. The photo shows an almost successful attempt to breed stars last December and look at that greedy foster sibling - course the parents stopped feeding them because I looked and consequently they all perished. So when you get that other aviary separate Stars and Gouldians as a precaution and don't look.

PS can somone tell me how to allign images?