No babies yet

[Redwing]

Not sure what to do now but having no luck so far with breeding.
*OB's look like they finally finished a nest a week or so ago,brought the hen in for 24 hours as she looked as though she was egg bound. They're back to just sitting around preening each other for endless hours.
*Gouldians who had been sitting for weeks and weeks with no eggs finally laid 2 eggs on the weekend (and there have been 4 more on the aviary floor that I suspect may be theirs) and now they're not sitting at all, so I checked today and the nest is empty again.
*Stars have been sitting for about 4 weeks with no sign of feeding babies so when the hen flew off the nest when I was checking the Gouldians I had a quick feel. All that was in the nest was 1 very old broken egg.
The only pair that look promising at the moment are my new young Painted withe girl who lost her mate. He's got a nest built and they are both in and out of it but not sitting tight yet.
What do I do?
*Take nests out for a couple of weeks and give them all a 2 week austerity period?
*Do nothing and hope they all work out what to do?
I have done so much reading now on the forum and can"t think of anything else that they might need. Any suggestions????

[Matt]

I wouldn't bother with any austerity period right now. I would let them go for a couple of weeks and see if the stars and orange breasts have another go. It's probably starting to get a bit late for goulds as their moult is only just around the corner. If you really feel you need to do something to get them into action, seperate the sexes for a week or two.

[Redwing]

Thanks Matt. Gouldian still has a really black beak and the male is still singing and dancing to her.

[Matt]

I have no doubt they will still breed right now but unless they start incubating shortly, they will still be feeding chicks when they should be starting their moult. The moult is stressful enough for them.

[Pete Sara]

A big thing to remember is when they breed in the wild . I had stars that bred early in the year and not at spring. As for O B well when we had them they would breed in the warmer spring weather so mate like most african finches they suffer form egg binding if left unchecked over winter, the best piece of advice I could give you right now is patience. we are in for a bit of crap weather over here in the next few days in perth so that can trigger some birds to start breeding with all the rain and ob and stars don't like any form of nest inspection if you can resist that you might see some progress...pete

[Redwing]

Thanks both of you. I wouldn't normally have looked in the nest but they just didn't look like they were feeding young and have been really keeping an eye on them all. Up until today I had kept rightaway from their nest. Hard when you're tring to do everything right and still nothing happening. Perhaps I should go and buy a couple of zebs?

[Pete Sara]

NO don't do that, without offending the keen zebra keepers( we all had to start somewhere and i know i did)you would be going backwards, mate i have the same troubles as you but with diamond firetails, i am not going to give up till i have produced young .......birds they will frustrate you but they make it worth while eventually...pete

[Redwing]

Thanks Pete-Most of the time it just makes you try even harder. Just set up my mini fruit fly trap yesterday and tried out one of the homemade soft food recipes on them all not sure which ones had a try but there wasn't much left this morning and of course my 4 canaries in my patio aviary had their bowl polished off and shouting at the wire for more.

[Pete Sara]

its all trial and error , hopefully less error..pete

[jusdeb]

Its hard not to look into nests isnt it . As said patience , I had no luck breeding till I was convalescing from surgery ...my birds actually started breeding while I was too sick to be poking around them every day , now I take a very laid back attitude and honestly dont know Ive got babies till I see extra birds in the aviary.
Just have to leave them be in control of baby making , your job is to oversee food , cleanliness and observe for ill health the rest is up to them.