Colony Breeding

[finchingit]

Hi All,

I'm looking at establishing a colony of Parrot finches this season, and I was wondering if there is a right or wrong way to do this? Do you establish the pairs prior to placing in the aviary? Do you release them into the aviary all together? Do you stagger the introduction of pairs? Are there any absolute No-No's?

Any feedback or previous experience would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

[E Orix]

What type of Parrot Finches.
My personal opinion is unless you have a very big aviary then Blue Faced P/F's should be housed as pairs.
They won't fight and will get along fine until a female is ready to breed and all the males will then gang up on her
and drive her and drive her,quite often she will die from exhaustion.I have run 5 females with 2 males successfully though.
Their attention is spread and there are only two males to drive the female around.
Also I feel that you will breed more Blue Face as single pairs rather than a colony.
Reds I have run as a colony without any problems but once again I think that better results are reach with single pairs per aviary

[Tiaris]

I totally agree with Orix that you'll nearly always get more young per pair when stocked as single pairs & also to house more hens than cocks. Even reds will "drive" spare hens. May also be a good idea to release the hens into the aviary a day or two prior to the males so they can get their bearings before being chased around. If you lose a hen, take a cock out of the aviary immediately. With PF colonies once the sex ratio changes in favour of the cocks, the remaining hens are placed under extra pressure/stress due to the relative lack of pair bonding & relentless courtship chasing. Generally the hen mortality rate in colonies is far greater than male losses over & above the usual toll of breeding activity.

[dano_68]

I breed both RFPF and Tri-coloured PF in small colonies of 3 pair of each per aviary. I find I get excellent result although with the Tri's I sometimes get a dominant cockbird that wants to own all the hens! But as for Red Face, I actually think they prefer the company of their own kind and thrive in colonies.

[vettepilot_6]

Hmmm interesting Guys...Although I have bred only RFPF in both single pairs and colony avairies...I found very little difference in the amount of young from each...so I don't think it matters with RFPF...haven't tried any other PF yet so I can't comment on them...
I usually add the Hens to the aviary ahead of the Cock birds so they can get their bearings before being chased into submission...