Aussie Finch Forum

Hi All ,
Just a story on a snake in my avairy last January . Living in Brisbane we had a incredible amount of rain last summer . It rained for weeks on end and a trip to the back yard cages was very difficult with heavy rain , strong winds and local flooding . During one of my quick trips to the cages I noticed a lot of finches were missing ? . Looking around i noticed a mottled colour in one of the gouldian nest boxes on closer examination it turned out to be a carpet snake . He had eaten over a dozen finches - Gouldians , Orange Breasts , RF parrot finches , Cordons etc . Nothing I could do but catch the offender and take him to the nearby bush and release him . My advice to all is to do a bit of maintence on your avairies and be vigilant . Cheers all Angus

It is very easy to be a bit negligent when its raining and the ground turns to slush . Sorry to hear about you losing so many finches , hope the snake stays away now/

how true

That is not good at all! So far I have never gotten a snake in any of my aviaries thank goodness, but I will keep it in mind!

Back when I was growing up on Waltons mountain ooops got carried away there ...seriously growing up on Bowen Mountain my Dad had a rather large finch aviary , all steel and tough as nails to take the strong winds the mountain gets anyhoo remember waking up one morning to find the wire part of the roof sagging under the weight of a HUGE Goanna .
Dont know if it was sunning itself or looking for a way in to the finches .

Remembering what others had told me about Goannas running up your legs if they catch up with you it came down to me or the finches .....lets just say " every finch for himself ".

I am still recovering bird stocks from my last snake incident 3-4 years ago. I went away with my wife for the first time ever and left a good friend in charge. He did everything right except notice that there was less and less food being eaten each day. I returned home with over 50% of the collection gone - 3 baby carpet, 2 brown tree snakes - spread throughout the aviary. Some aviaries were completely empty, some just cocks, some just hens - quite odd how selective they were. Still not sure how they got in as I'd never had a snake before (I suspect a walkway door was left open).

Danny wrote:I am still recovering bird stocks from my last snake incident 3-4 years ago. I went away with my wife for the first time ever and left a good friend in charge. He did everything right except notice that there was less and less food being eaten each day. I returned home with over 50% of the collection gone - 3 baby carpet, 2 brown tree snakes - spread throughout the aviary. Some aviaries were completely empty, some just cocks, some just hens - quite odd how selective they were. Still not sure how they got in as I'd never had a snake before (I suspect a walkway door was left open).

Thats terrible....thinking nobody looks after them like the person who owns them

Wow who would think snakes would be such a problem . I guess location has a lot to do with it and touch wood the snakes around here tend to stay in the paddocks ...I guess also being on the verge of a mouse plague the snakes have no need to search out my aviaries.

Touching wood.

3 word solution .. 6 mm mesh

The real solution is regular maintenance on your cages and avairies . Predators will try and find a entry where ever possible . Check gaps around doors , feeding entries etc .