Aussie Finch Forum

Hi ,Seem to have a problem with birds dissappearing in my aviary dont know if anyone has experienced this had young ruddies in nest and now gone nothing in nest not even the eggs ,a young zebra out of nest gone ,also had painted finches sitting for bout week then abandoned nest inspected and found nothing in nest what the ????im thinking lizards or mice but i havent seen any trace of them

Well the suspects depend on where you live. My first thought here (the Philippines) would be the red-tailed green rat-snake but in Penrith I would be thinking rodents. While mice numbers do decline over winter I don't think last summer's mouse plague is over. Geckoes have a reputation here but that's doubtful in Penrith but could a baby bearded or water dragon walk through 12mm mesh and grow up in an aviary? Possibly it could but it's a low probability. If I suspect a preditor I always pull out all brush and nests, look for and repair any holes and start again. Do I lose active nests when I do this - yes, but that is preferable to losing the parent breeding stock.

yes I have exprienced missing babies!Had a pair of zebs sitting on 4 eggs I know they all hatched but then there were only 2 one day?
i would suspect mice but noe 100% sure

The other possibility is ants. I was surprised at how quickly ants demolished an adult zebra. I would think a baby zeb or similar wouldsapear overnibght or while I was at work easily. An egg falling from a height would smah and becoome a source of calcium and protein for quails or other birds very quickly.

In bird breeding we are trying to replicate nature or help it along. It needs all the help it can get.

MadOzzie

I had the same problem here in south-east Queensland. Thinking it was a mouse but not being able to find any evidence of one. I set up a video camera with night vision. To my surprise I watched an Asian Gecko (not the local gecko, as It seems to have disappeared from my area), enter the nest then leave later, The hen did not leave the nest while the Gecko was in there. In the morning I was missing the egg or at that time it should have hatched, so I suspect a day old chick was missing. This happened several times, however I was unable to set the camera up in such a way that I could actually see the gecko eating the chick/egg. So still only have very strong suspicions. Now I try to keep all geckos out of my aviaries.

Eek how big are your gecko's?

Here that scenario of missing babies and eggs would equal a rat or more likely a snake that got into the aviary. I would never suspect a gecko... well ours are tiny anyhow. Thank goodness.

Only Geko's I have noticed round here are too small I would think. So any problems I have are when the mice decide to make nuisances of themselves.
LML

As you can see from the images on one of our (Philippine) local "For Sale" pages (Sulit.com) the "Tuko" (Gekko gecko)is a bloody big gecko. They draw blood when they bite but are sort of cute but it is the much smaller house gecko that is implicated in nest raids.

tokay gecko's are cool, they will even take sleeping birds though

monotwine wrote:Eek how big are your gecko's?

Here that scenario of missing babies and eggs would equal a rat or more likely a snake that got into the aviary. I would never suspect a gecko... well ours are tiny anyhow. Thank goodness.

Our native Gecko's are fairly small in south east Queensland but seem to have disappeared. However the problem Geckos seem to be the larger faster breeding Asian Geckos.