HI from South Oz

[mr.fox]

Howdy everyone. I've been checking this site out for a while but thought it was bout time I said g'day. Finding all the information and your experiences very helpful and interesting. I keep mostly smaller native parrots, but starting to venture into a few finches lately. Currently have Emblemas, RH & BH Gouldians, RF Parrotfinches, Hecks, Cuban, Cordon and Stars. Done ok with gouldies and emblemas but struggling with the foreign species( just can't get enough livefood) I'm really only set up for parrots but enjoy the finches and the challenges they present. Had to learn a whole new set of skills compared to keeping and breeding parrots. Not many of the finches are breeding at the moment,.. just so cold and miserable!

[gomer]

Hi there Mr fox,good to see you have seen the light.Not sure where you are in SA Im close to the border south.Have goulds stars and emblems breeding atm from what you have mentioned.

[Buzzard-1]

G'day and welcome,Parrots and finches myself at least the better half has parrots I should say

[Diane]

Hi and welcome to the forum mr fox
Where about in SA are you? Might have some locations for live food if you are in Metro Adelaide.
If you could fill in your location it will help other members when offering advice.

[finchbreeder]

Hi and welcome. Leave a patch of weeds growing and as you pull them up the finches will get some live food from them. Try putting a solar light in the avairy to attract moths. Build a fruit/vinegar fly trap. Just a few possible solutions to the problem. Good luck.
LML

[mr.fox]

thanks everyone, I am and always will be a parrot-man but love my finches just as much. Just trying to keep too many and too many species right now for the amount of time/space i have. need to cut back a bit. Maybe that's just the cold weather making me think that. Things always seem a bit cheerier when the weather warms up and life returns again!

[Diane]

In the warmer weather I had some success with a compost bin. We use it for creating garden mulch and I saw that there was always little flies in there every time I opened it up. So now I take a net with me and scoop the net around a few times and hot-foot it to the aviary and shake out the captives. The OB's like them. Im waiting for the rose bushes to get greenfly I will see it I can shake them off and put them in the aviary. Now that I want the roses to get greenfly they probably wont.

[VR1Ton]

Hi & Welcome, I use a compost bucket in my aviaries to attrack vinager flies for the softbills, just use an old bucket or large pot, throw in some fruit scraps, the juicier the better, and cover with a bit of wire.

[finchbreeder]

Have got my mother catching the daddy long legs spiders in her budgie and weerio avairys and bringing them over for the finches.
LML

[mr.fox]

I always found a great way to catch earwigs for my quail was to leave sections of bamboo around the yard. the litle buggers would crawl inside the hollow bamboo overnight and it was just a matter of tapping them out onto the aviary floor in the morning. Pity the finches don't touch em!