Aussie Finch Forum

Hi everyone my name is Adrian. I have a problem with my sea green parrot finches they have so far hatch 10 babies in the past couple of months and lost every one of them. problem is the babies get to about a week old and then the parents just stop feeding them . i give them mealies every afternoon and seed. am i doing something wrong. PLEASE HELP.

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Have a look at this topic, there was some discussion about the skins on mealworms not being able to be digested by the young. Maybe that is the problem.
http://www.aussiefinchforum.net/viewtop ... 30&p=20940

Try termite instead along with the mealworms, if you've got access to them, and incease them while decreasing the mealworms. Greenfood is loved by all Parrotfinches, green seed heads, spinach, endive, comfry, lebonese cucumber, to name a few, madiera cake, egg & biscuit & mashed up hard boiled egg are also good. The more varied the diet, the greater the range of vitamins & minerals taken in by the adults, the beeer off the chicks will be.

welcome

Welcome to the forum. Hope the advice given above solves your problem.
LML

Hi. I breed the same finches . & what I do us feed them in the mornings.. I don't feed mine meal worms only greens.. Try feedin in morning not to much. Then feed them when u get hme from work or if u don't work around 2,,3pm

Hi Adrian, welcome aboard.

Are you sure the young were deserted and didn't just die from the cold at night? the parrot finch family stop brooding their young at just after a week old and during the colder months they can perish.

If that is not your problem, then I would suggest you feed them the goodies in the morning instead of afternoon or at least make sure there is enough to keep them going until morning. I personally don't have any problems feeding my parrot finches mealworms and I have never witnessed one eat the skins. They will gorge themselves on mealworms if allowed, which probably isn't much good for them, so I restrict mine to around 30 per pair feeding young per day in morning and late afternoon sittings. I feel green seeding grasses and sprouted seed is more important and if you can manage to keep up a good supply of greens, you probably need not worry about live food too much.

Hopefully, now that the weather is starting to warm, you might start to have some success.

You will know by the chicks crops . . crops empty = deserted . . crops full = died of cold (or perhaps other cause)

Most finches (unlike softbills) do not eat the skin of the mealworm so it wouldnt get into the crop to cause digestive problems . . mealworms are over-rated as a valuable live food anyway, and are certainly surplus to requirements for "parroties" . . greens ,greens, and more greens.

Work on the "10/10 rule" with parroties . . . They stop brooding young at 10 days and young ones will die if temperature falls below 10'C . . If nest is in a nestbox it can be taken into the house on dark and returned at first light with no problems . . If nest is in brush (not overly common with these birds) then you/they are in trouble

hi
everyone thank you for the advise i will try everything. i will start with the early morning feeding and see how that goes. when i feed them in the afternoon its been around 5.00- 5.30. thats when i get home from work. i also didnt know that they stopped brooding after a week.