Aussie Finch Forum

Hey all,
Just came back to the hobby and this forum after a very, very long break. I have a mixed aviary consisting mainly of Gouldians. One of my hens just laid a clutch of eggs which are all fertile and due to hatch in a few days. Is there anything I can do to increase their chance of survival considering we are in the middle of a particularly cold, wet and windy winter here in Melbourne? any advice will be greatly appreciated

Just try and make sure that you do your best in keeping them sheltered from draughts/wind and the wet weather.. North facing avairy so they get as much sun as possible during the cooler months is the best option I find. Good luck with them, you should be okay. Soaked/sprouted seed and some greens helps a lot as well.

While I have hung reptile heat pads under a shelf in the flight cage (these pads get too hot for some birds to stand on), more recently I began using seed pads designed to place under trays of plant seedlings. These seedling mats have two advantages: they are large enough for quite a few finches to huddle on, but more importantly, they stay just warm enough to take the edge off cold weather. Birds can comfortably stand right on them. You can even place newspaper or some other substrate on them. And it helps to lay some perches or tree branches on the mats so the birds can perch normally above the mat.

Finally, I bought a really large heat pad for my big dog's igloo (it snows here and sometimes he prefers to be outdoors) that has temp control settings as well as a programmable timer. That pad could also work equally well for birds. But, the seed mat is my first choice. No temp setting required and it's easy to wash off.