I have had a deal of breeding success lately in my aviaries last month  and the information may be valuable for people other than me.  Before I get onto that I will just go over my set-up and feeding regime.  I have two aviaries with mixed collections. I have dry seed available in hoppers (canary, white millet, yellow millet, Japanese millet, yellow panicum, red panicum, rape at therrate of 2:2:1:1:1:1:0.25) and each day I feed a sprouted version of the dry mix (after selecting out those components that ahave high seed viability) and half ripe green seed (seasonally available panicum species, johnson’s grass – a Sorghum, various barnyard grasses – Echinochloa spp, palm grasses – Settaria spp and rice).  The fresh grasses are fed from suspended plastic containers tied to the perches and I discard the grass onto the floor of the aviary each day.
 
I also feed a soft-food mix of quail egg and Wambaroo soft-food mix (I bring it back from Australia but the better egg & biscuit mixes might substitute here).  The egg and moistened soft-food mix are extruded through a garlic press  and the “worms” tossed together.  The birds are given access to a grit mix (grated cuttle bone, pulverized eggshell & charcoal and coarse sand all sieved to exclude particles larger that 2mm and to remove any dust).  Birds are given clean water every day and given Noxil (an anti-coccidial) treatment once a month in the drinking water. 
 
Once a year I put new dried branches of Australian bottle brush (Callistemon spp) in the shelter at the end of summer and at the same time I spray the shelter area with an insecticide (Coopex – a wettable pyrethroid powder made by Bayer but I can’t find an equivalent here).  I usually start lining most nesting receptacles (boxes and baskets) with the remains of the green seeding grasses when dried and finishing the inside with tiger grass (I chop up a soft Bagio broom) and then line the nest with soft plant fiber (Kapock, seed heads from sugar cane, Phragmites & Imperata).  The tiger grass and plant fiber are also available in the aviary in suspended baskets for those birds that prefer to make their on nests (Zebras and Stars).
Cut-Throat pair, female right

Cut-Throat pair, female right

In a previous post I mentioned that I have a pair of cut-throats which on four attempts let their young starve after hatching when housed with my other pair.  I separated them, suspecting competition but still the young starved.  Both pairs

Juvenile Cut-throat finch - about 9 days old

Juvenile Cut-throat - about 9 days old

prefer to nest in wooden boxes but have used baskets.  I was on the point of selling them on when they went down on eggs again.  This time when I introduced the soft food mix while they were incubating,  the birds ignored it but one morning they didn’t and sure enough five of their eggs had hatched.  The adults, shown above, picked the mashed quail egg from the mix and were only feeding it.  I increased the frequency of feeding egg from one to three times a day and after 5 days the adults switched to feeding seed and after 18 days the young fledged.  I don’t know if the food preference is inherited via nature or nurture as my other Cut-throat pair does not require egg food or much anyway to raise their young.  I will now be able to offer unrelated pairs (banded red & yellow) when I sell at Cartimar.  There are, for some reason this time, an excess of cock birds but since they are more colorful this shouldn’t be a problem for those just seeking a pretty bird.

Owl Pair

Owl Pair, Female left

My other success is with Owl finches or what I still call Double bars.  Having spent P6000 for a pair I was dismayed to find one dead one morning.  Since they are monomorphic I was left with a problem that experts have problems sexing
Juvenile Owl finch - abour 10 days old.

Juvenile Owl finch - abour 10 days old.

the remaining bird.  Sometime later I notice the remaining bird being groomed (allopreened) by a female Zebra finch so I knew exactly what to do after I sold my next lot of birds.  I search around for the most dimorphic pair at Carimar that day and purchased the hen at Rainforest. From the photo you can see that aside from having a toe missing her breast and face mask is a little less white than the males.  Anyway supposedly she was 9 months old in November and last month (Feb 2009) I noticed she was missing most of the time and just yesterday I looked in their nest ( a recycled nest built by a zebra pair in the brush at the rear of the aviary) and found two nestlings – maybe 5 days old and a number of unhatched eggs.  The parents are very keen on the green grasses and I’m hoping to see the young flege in a couple of week time.

Shaft-tail pair, female right.

Shaft-tail pair, female right.

Shaft-tail finches are another monomorphic species I’d given up on  breeding as I had two pairs and they had shown no sign of breeding for over a year but it was obviously a year that they needed to mature.  My first pair divorced as soon as I placed them in the aviary and the presumed male took a fancy to a female Zebra finch and has raised 3 nests of zebras with her (she obviously cheats).

Flegling Shaft-tail finch.

Flegling Shaft-tail finch.

The second pair were purchased about 6 months after the first and were in retrospect just waiting for the right moment.  Their first nest  was a made in the brush and has produced only a single chick (shown). I had been led to believe that this species only nests in hollow logs and boxes so this not true.   The female has a slightly smaller bib than the male, the beak is less red and the black lores(the feathers between the beak and eyes) are smaller. Based on this diagnosis I purchased another female (P750) and will introduce her to the spare boys when she is out of quarantine.

Youngs stars looked over by a yong male Zebra finch
Youngs stars looked over by a yong male Zebra finch

My “parasitized” Stars have again produced two youngsters (shown) and this time they made a nest in the dry aviary brush.  I was careful not to look or disturb the birds as they are obviously very sensitive so this time no nest inspections and I have complete success.  Since then though they made a nest in a fern against the side of the aviary so I have protected it again with a sheet of plexiglass. Before the nest was complete I noticed that two eggs were visible inside so I won’t be surprised if more than Stars come out of it.  I can’t see into the completed nest but eggs should be hatching next week so I’ll keep my ears out for the distinctive Gouldian call but I guess I’ll let things be.  If I ever get my bank of five cages Stars and Gouldians are definitely species that need separating.

On the subject of Gouldians I was concerned about an abnormal beak on a male that I purchased last year and so I took it to the veterinary clinic at UP.  They were reluctant to treat such a small bird so I did the beak scraping for them. The abnormal part of the beak was chalky and fungal hyphe were visible under the microscope so they recommended a number of anti-fungal treatments.  With my quarantine cage full of incoming birds I chose the weekly treatment with Amorolfine nail lacquer – the same treatment used for humans with fungal nail infections.  The lacquer is painted on weekly for four weeks but cost was as much as the bird!  If I were a business man I guess I should have sacrificed the bird.  I hope that it is still able to breed after this and recoup the cost and not pass the disease on.