Rotmaskenastrild - Yellow Winged Pytilia

Today, 17 June, I close-rung two yellow winged Pytilia fledglings which I happened to see in the plant cover.

Rotmaskenastrild === Yellow-Winged Pytilia === Pytilia hypogrammica

I waited until they exposed themselves away from the undergrowth and caught them without too much hassle with a 23 cms diameter net. I used Size C closed metal rings. The closed rings were quite easy to fit. Size C rings have an inner diameter of 2.5 mm.

For those interested in details.....

I gave them hard boiled egg finely cut, germinating millet and canary seeds, no grass seeds whatsoever, and lots of green English lettuce and cucumber. No insects either. I change the egg once every 4 hours to make sure it is fresh but the Pytilias do not seem to eat it unlike the other species e.g. orange cheeks. The Pytilias mostly like lettuce, cucumber and germinating seed which I replenish in the afternoon.
I started this food at six in the morning when they had the eggs and hatchlings in the nest and about a week ago I started giving this food at eight in the morning. Every 4 hours, I replenish the egg and usually the germinating seed and the lettuce because it is all eaten by late afternoon.

It is amazing that these two young came about because I still have to build breeding flights in order to place one pair of these birds to a flight. At the moment there are about 5 pairs altogether and lots of fighting and chasing by both cocks and hens. This of course should lead to infertile eggs.

OUT OF TEN AFRICAN FINCH SPECIES that I have had so far, I find that this species is the ONLY one that I have that do not like animal protein AT ALL even when they are breeding .....!!! This is VERY STRANGE because all the other African species I have cannot get enough of animal protein when I offer it to them.

The Yellow Winged Pytilia NEVER ate the mealworms and the blowfly larvae when I gave them these. And they have stubbornly refused to eat hard boiled egg to this day even when breeding.

Can anyone explain why this species does not eat animal protein please ?
If you tell me that your Pytilias eat animal protein, your birds must be coming from a different part of Africa or must be some subspecies of the hypogrammica species. I cannot understand what is going on with this species.

Thank you,

William

I have bred them more than once, and they are fond of ant eggs (freezer) and after the babies are somewhat bigger they will take buffaloworms too.

Thanks Hans for your answer.
I see. So I am giving them the wrong type of livefood.

Puzzle 1.

1. How is it that my Pytilias did not throw their hatchlings OUT OF THE NEST ????

My orange cheeks and bluecaps threw their hatchlings out of the nest EVEN WHEN they had access to mealworms, blowfly larvae and hard boiled egg.

Orange cheeks = Orangebäckchen = Estrilda melpoda
Bluecaps = Blaukopfschmetterlingsfink = Uraeginthus cyanocephalus

Is it possible that the Pytilia hypogrammica hatchlings beg more loudly than those of orange cheeks or bluecaps ? Do you happen to know ?

My Blackcaps = Nonnenastrild = Estrilda nonnula reared three young on just hard boiled egg. No insects. About 2 months ago. They also did not throw their young out of the nest even though they had no insects.

Do you happen to know whether blackcaps eat frozen ant eggs as well ?
Do you happen to know whether Blackcap hatchlings beg more loudly than those of orange cheeks or bluecaps ?

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Puzzle 2.

Did your Pytilias have TWO YOUNG like mine did ?
My Golden Song Sparrows also bred two young at a time as well.
Even Quelea quelea the famous African plague finch breeds two young in its nest.
However Australian finch species usually breed FIVE YOUNG as far as I know.
I think this is rather strange.

Can you tell me what African species usually breed five young like the Australians do?
I think Bluecaps usually breed five young. I happen to know that this species is very fussy about having lots of animal protein when breeding.
Gerhard told me that orange cheeks usually breed between 10 - 15 young per 3 broods, an average of four young per brood.
So there MAY be a connection between the NUMBER OF YOUNG that a species breeds per brood and its LIKELIHOOD of throwing the young out of the nest. In both bluecaps and orange cheeks, it has been my experience that they readily throw their young of the nest but I do not feed ant pupae at all.

So is it possible that the reason why the P. hypogrammica did not throw their young out of the nest was because they only usually breed two young and not five like the bluecaps ?

Do you know of ANY African finch species that usually breeds two young per brood but does have a reputation of throwing its young out of the nest ?

Many thanks.

William

Answer 1. In my opinion mealworms are the reason of the problem of throwing chicks.
I have no breeding records of species of the genus Estrilda, so I can't help you with that.
Most finches eat ant egss, even Bengalese do.

Answer 2.
I have had nests of 2-4 chicks, so not necessarely 2
There is a difference in the need for insects in relation to the numbers of chicks but that's obvious of course.
Human twins do eat twice as much than a single baby too...

FliegendeHollaender schrieb:

Answer 1. In my opinion mealworms are the reason of the problem of throwing chicks.

Zum Vergrößern anklicken....

Thank you for your comments. Sorry I don’t understand the above statement at all. Can you clearly explain what you mean by this ?

Can you tell me whether the Yellow Winged Pytilia can be bred in a small cage 70 cms x 40 x 40 cms, like the Purple Grenadier can ?

Is the Yellow Winged Pytilia bred in numbers in Europe do you know ?
Thank you.

William

I meant to say that mealworms are causing the fact that a lot of the pairs will throw their babies out of the nest, the reason is that there is a certain hormone of something like that in the head of a mealworm that stimulates the breeding instincts.
That means that they are only interested in breeding on eggs, and since babies aren't eggs, they will throw them out.

Pytilia species in smaller cages is quite difficult, it's better to breed them in larger cages 1meter and more, or even in small aviaries with not too dominant companions

Regarding mealworms, I have some information which I doubt is correct but I will tell you just the same just in case you have something to add.
According to a friend of mine, the reason why some Belgian African finch breeders of many years standing do not feed mealworms AT ALL to their birds is because they say that mealworms are POISONOUS to the young.....!!!!

Which is why they only use frozen pinkies which they add to hard boiled egg.

Do you know whether this is correct or not ? Is it possible for you to ask some experts you may happen to know ?

Do you know whether frozen pinkies have some hormonal influence on African seed eaters ?

Thanks again.

William

They are not poisonous as far as I know, just that substance in the head of the mealworm is the problem, it triggers the breeding instincts and since a babybird is no egg they will throw it out.
You don't have this problem with ant eggs, buffalo worms, or fruitflies

Pinkies are good when frozen or boiled.
Don't use live pinkies fron tackle stores, because the black part of a living pinky (it's stomach) is poisonous.
When frozen or boiled the pinky is 'exhausting' the contents of the stomach.

I know a few breeders that say they remove the dry seedmixture, just offering the parents eggfood (as much as they want) given a few times a day.
Fresh and moist eggfood, with animal proteines mixed in it, it seems to work, after a few days they add greens and sprouted seeds and around the banding period the seeds go back in.
Never tried it myself but they say it works.

FliegendeHollaender schrieb:

I know a few breeders that say they remove the dry seedmixture, just offering the parents eggfood (as much as they want) given a few times a day.
Fresh and moist eggfood, with animal proteines mixed in it, it seems to work, after a few days they add greens and sprouted seeds and around the banding period the seeds go back in.
Never tried it myself but they say it works.

Zum Vergrößern anklicken....

Great information. Makes good sense to me. But this will work only if you house one pair of finches to a breeding flight on their own. So when the babies hatch, you know that it is time to remove the dry seed. But still, I am not quite sure whether this feeding method will stop the wild caught bluecaps and orange cheeks from throwing their young out of the nest ?

I would like to make an experiment to see whether my yellow winged Pytilias will be tempted to eat the following protein mix.

Suppose I want to mix hard boiled egg finely cut with Orlux dried ant pupae.
1. Is it a good idea to soak a teaspoon of dried ant pupae in water overnight so that they will swell and become nice and soft to eat [like couscous when you soak it]?

2. Will one teaspoon of soaked ant pupae be enough to add to one hard boiled egg finely cut ?

What is worrying me a bit is that I used to add mealworms and blowfly larvae still living with hard boiled egg and these insects used to make the egg turn bluish green after only about one hour in the birdroom as if some mold was growing ?

Do you know anything about this ?

William

I have no experiences with dried ant-eggs to be honest, I have always used the frozen ones.
But I guess that putting them in water will make them more attractive to eat.

I would mix the hardboiled egg with eggfood and sprouted seeds.
And cut the live or frozen insects into small pieces, or when you have a kitchen machine to do the job, put it all in the blender.
Make a certain portion of eggfood, and divide it into daily portion bags to put in the freezer.

Thank you Hans for your help.
Do you happen to know what colour frozen blowfly larvae are when you buy them from the store ? Are they creamy white or light brown ?
It amazes me that I have never seen frozen ant pupae or blowfly larvae being sold in England.

William

Sorry, can't help you with that