Two long years ?

[William Astor]

Hello everyone,

I am feeding my African finches hard boiled egg finely cut fresh, germinating seed, fresh lettuce and cucumber, every 4 hours during the day from 06.00 hours onwards, 6-10-14-18.00 hours. But the orange cheeks and the bluecaps keep on throwing their young out of the nest and I find them dead on the floor most of the time.

Bluecaps Blaukopfschmetterlingsfink Uraeginthus cyanocephalus

Orange cheeks Orangebäckchen Estrilda melpoda

Someone told me that African finches will throw their young out of the nest in the first 2 years that they are breeding in your indoor flight [ voliere] but after the first 2 years, they start rearing the young to full adulthood with no problems.
Do you agree with this ?
Can you please tell me how long you had your African finch species breeding and throwing young out of their nest before they reared their young to full adulthood ?
What species ? What food did you give them ?
Have you found that it is necessary to remove the male when the female is feeding her young in certain species otherwise the male will throw the young out of the nest ? If so, what species ?

What times during the day do you feed your African finches ?
Maybe the African finches do not throw their young out of their nest because of lack of livefood. I have heard that there is a man called Paul de Nil in Belgium who breeds 500 African fiinches every year on just hard boiled egg and pinkies. No frozen ant pupae, no blowfly maggots, no mealworms, no whiteworm. Maybe he uses Bengalese but it is likley that his Africans rear at least some of their own young.
Does anyone know breeders who breed Africans like this ?
I know it is a very frustrating situation. I hope you can give me some leads.
Thank you.

William

 

[Christian]

Hi William,

I don't know anything about breeding finches, but I found something, that might help you:

http://www.gouldianfinch.co.uk/pages/AA_fostering1.html

Quote:

It is often reported that wild caught finches throw their young out of the nest. This can be due to lack of privacy but one reason for this almost certainly is LACK OF A HUGE AMOUNT OF INSECTS DURING BREEDING. I am talking about hundreds of various insects per pair per day.

BTW ... I just searched Google for "african finch" and "breed" and "problem" ... you will find more breeding tips in english than in german as it seems.

 

[William Astor]

Hello Christian,

I appreciate your kindness in trying to help but the first article which I myself wrote is not relevant to what I am asking about. The thing about Google and internet Search engines is that they do not seek information by the context that you want. They only go by the keywords that you type in and irrelevant information is the result especially in cases where keywords with general meaning are typed in.

I have tried asking in English speaking newsgroups but people who are experienced do not bother to answer. It is either that or they siimply do not know. IT IS AMAZING that experienced breeders of African finches do not set up websites in which they show beginners the knowledge that they have gathered over many years of trying to breed the African finches.

I have set up a website in order to remedy this situation. If more people do not start breeding these beautiful birds, we are going to lose them in aviculture. Far too few people are breeding far too few of them. And finches live only short lives, remember, unlike parrots...!

http://astorwilliam.tripod.com/index.htm

So far people have told me that they cannot see all the pictures in the articles that I have written. I am working on this problem. Can you tell me whether you can access my website in Germany and see all the photos in my articles please ?

I thank you.

William

 

[Munia maja]

Hello William,

perhaps your African finches don´t rear their breed because you look too often after your birds? They might feel disturbed when you offer the fresh food four times a day. I think, twice (or eventually three times) a day is enough.

It´s not normal that they throw out the nestlings within the first two years, even when they are kept in indoor flights. Most breeders have problems because they give the wrong food. You should feed different sources of proteins, not only the boiled eggs, but try some livefood (e.g. mealworms, different maggots, pinkies, ant pupae - fresh and frozen...) and some special protein breeding food. I think Mr. de Nil has that good results of breeding because he uses the Bengalese...(It´s no natural breeding, I wouldn´t imitate that...)

Sometimes throwing out the nestlings can also be caused by the recurrent mating behaviour especially of the male bird (I noticed that in my zebrafinches). In that case you should remove the male.

I hope, that I my advice could give you a little help,
Steffi

 

[lilli]

no website

i can not see your website!!!!
internet explorer and firefox

but i can open it downloaded in frontpage

please look in html:

<!-- ********************************************************** -->
<!-- * START TRIPOD AD CODE - PLEASE REMOVE WHEN EDITING PAGE * -->
<!-- ********************************************************** -->

<!-- revision: inline - $Change: 69429 $ -->

and later:

<!-- END: Catman Footer -->

<!-- revision: ubiquitous - $Change: 69045 $ -->

<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<!-- * END TRIPOD AD CODE - PLEASE REMOVE WHEN EDITING PAGE * -->
<!-- ******************************************************** -->
perhaps is this the reason?

 

[Christian]

Hi again!

...the first article which I myself wrote ...

Oops, sorry, I should have taken a closer look.

So far people have told me that they cannot see all the pictures in the articles that I have written. I am working on this problem.

The problem is that some images are searched on the local hard disk of the reader ... check the IMG-tags in the HTML code ... some images are searched in the My Documents folder

 

[William Astor]

Hello Christian and lilli,

I have made some changes in the HTML code in all the pages.
Can you see if you can access my website now please ?
Can you also click on my hyperlinked articles and see whether the pictures load up please ?
Thank you.

William

 

[Christian]

Hi again William,

on the page ...
http://astorwilliam.tripod.com/Fostering/bengalese.htm
... there are still the same probems with the images.

for example the first image can't be loaded because the IMG tag is wrong ... it tries to load from the local hard disk ... compare with the third image, which loads correctly.

As I saw, that you used Frontpage ... maybe it helps, if you only use lower case letters in file names and don't use blanks in it ... some web servers have problems with file names containing upper case letters.

PS: On the page ...
http://astorwilliam.tripod.com/DropQuestionnaire/questionnaire.htm
... the last image is also missing.

 

[William Astor]

Chris and lilli,

Does everything work well now ?

William

 

[lilli]

hej,
now it works really well!!!
there are very lovely birds!!!
and the side with the droppings looks "very nice"
finally, my english is not good enough for understand the articles.
greetings from the coast of the baltic sea!

 

[Christian]

Yep William,

perfect

 

[William Astor]

Hello Steffi,

Thank you for your reply.
Can you tell me what African finches you breed or are trying to breed please ?
Thank you.

William
P.S.
Thank you lilli and Chris for your feedback. Vundervoll....

 

[Munia maja]

Hello William,

I don´t breed any African finches. I just told you, what I know. Some of my friends breed Africans (Blue Waxbills - Uraeginthus bengalus; Golden-breasted Waxbills - Sporaeginthus subflavus), their birds needed huge amounts of livefood to raise their offspring. I thought that only the so-called "easybreeding" species like Bengalese, Zebrafinches and Spice Finches needed nothing but boiled eggs (or special breeding food based on eggs) to feed their nestlings (and of course a lot of fresh food like germinating seed, cucumber, different herbs...).
I myself breed Zebrafinches (they are like mice...) and Munias and Mannikins (Brown-headed Munia - M. malacca brunneiceps; Black-headed Munia - M. malacca atricapilla; Chestnut-breasted Mannikin - M. castaneothorax). The Black- and Brown-headed Munias don´t like livefood at all (I offered different food), they only need a lot of germinating seed, lettuce and different sorts of half-ripe millet-seed, wild herbs and grasses. The Mannikins also like some livefood - pinkies, ant pupae, mealworms (It´s a little bit difficult to breed them because in Germany nobody is interested in that lovely birds, therefore you can´t get any females). And my Zebras - well...!

Sorry, that I´m no African breeder, perhaps within a few years (if I would have enough time and space) ...?

Steffi

 

[William Astor]

Hi Steffi,

Thank you for your interesting post. I am interested in what herbs your finches like best. Are these served dried or fresh ?
Do you serve them on their own or in a mix or mixed with hard boiled egg ?

You mention half ripe millet seed. Do you mean that you grow it yourself in your back garden and harvest it when the seed is small and green ?

Regarding frozen ant eggs and pinkies, unfortunately we do not have these for sale in England. What we have is mealworms and blowfly larvae. Even when I gave these two insects in abundance, the orange cheeks and the Bluecaps devoured these insects and still threw their young out of the nest. I have not had a singe bluecap or a single orange cheek raised to adulthood yet. It is always thrown out and left for dead. Only a few days ago I found a Bluecap nestling with tiny feathers forming on its tiny wings dead on the floor.

William

 

[henrik]

Hi William,

I've never heard that African finches should fail to rear the first two years. And I see no reason for this to be true.

I know of several examples of wild caught finches rearing within a few months of arrival (also some experiences of my own).

However I've had trouble rearing the african finches in smaller enclosures - especially indoor. It's my experience that you would need 2 squaremetres to have a fair chance of success.

by the way how is the fly farming project - disposed for good or?

 

[Munia maja]

Hello William,

it´s easier to get to know the English terms for the different birds than the few expressions for the different herbs I feed...
In addition to lettuce (which they like most!), cucumber and rasped carrots I serve the following fresh herbs (in parentheses the Latin terms): chickweed (Stellaria media), dandelion (Taracaxum officinale), shepherd´s purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris), parsley (Petroselinum crispum), ribwort (Plantago lanceolata) and plantain (Plantago major). While the Mannikins like all of the offered plants, the Munias are a little bit harder to please. When I offer lettuce, they disdain the other plants. That´s why I give them a lot of half-ripe millet-seed (I get it from a farmer, who cultivates it especially for bird-keepers, and then I freeze it) and/or germinating seed.

Concerning the livefood-problems, perhaps you can get live pinkies in a "fishing-shop" (is it the right word?) - the anglers need them to catch different fishes...? My Mannikins don´t get frozen ant pupae but dried ones. I rehydrate them with a few drops of boiling water or mix them with rasped carrots.

Maybe Henrik is on the right way - what size do your indoor flights have? Are there any plants in the cages?

How many bluecaps and orange cheeks do you have? Perhaps the partners don´t really harmonize, even when they try to breed (It´s the main problem in breeding Munias and Mannikins...)?

Steffi

 

[William Astor]

Henrik.......! Good old Henrik from Finch Forum. I am so glad you are a member here. So glad.

Thanks for answering. You wrote...

> I've never heard that African finches should fail to rear the first two years. And I see no reason for this to be true.

I quote here a post that an American breeder, Michael in NH posted at Finch Fourm...

<<< Bluecap Cordons are tough to breed & raise successfully!! They take TONS & TONS of meal worms when breeding & feeding babies. I have found that my two pairs also require a lot of egg food daily and LOTS of privacy. And even with all this they still toss [ eject out of the nest ] 50 to 75 percent of the chicks at around 10-12 days old already dead. I feed approx. 150 meal worms twice a day per pair. I still can't figure out why they toss so many. I have talked to 6-8 other breeders who have the same problem. That is why so many breeders foster all their Bluecaps. Sorry for the report but I think you need all the info you can get. >>>

That is exactly what happened to me. When I gave my bluecaps mealworms and blowfly larvae in abundance all day long and a bowlful of fly larvae was always available to them in the evening so that they could feed their young early in the morning, I still found hatchlings dead in the morning on the floor.

What I find odd is that when I bred Gouldians the hatchlings would still be alive when I found htem on the floor but with African finches, the hatchlings have always been dead when I found them on the floor.

After two years, he says that they now parent rear their own young on the same food that he used to give them.

So how come you are saying different ?
I think the most likely reason is that you are supplying them with the food that Africans seem to like above all else. ANT PUPAE. Gerhard who gave me such good answers to my post on Orange Cheeks told me ..
<< Most birds highly prefer the ant pupae followed by the Blowfly maggots so they are gone pretty soon. >>

But another American called Randy Taylor one of the very few experienced and dedicated American breeders has told me that his Bluecap Cordon Bleus raise young without any live food at all! They eagerly eat grated plain hard-boiled egg, soaked seeds and game-bird starter. [ which is small pellets that is normally fed to large birds ]

So it is likely that you have to wait until the bluecaps feel comfortable with the food that you are giving them. In your case your Bluecaps feel comfortable with ant pupae because these pupae look like termites which the Bluecaps probably feed to their young in the wild in Africa.

Regarding the fly farming project and even the mealworm farming project. After having learnt how to culture them [ which was not easy ], I realised that I was spending too much time trying to culture them and was persuaded to change my strategy into training all my wild caught Africans to eat hard boiled egg. I have already written the basics about my experiences. I will upload an article on my website as soon as I have finished it.

And it has worked. All the species like hard boiled egg now. The ones that hardly touch it are those that are not ready to breed. But the ones that are either breeding or ready to breed eat it as soon as I give a fresh plate of finely grated hard boiled egg every 4 hours. It works. No insects. The only snag is that I found that I have to wake up early so that they will have food to feed their young.
If I am not successful in getting my Bluecaps and other Africans to parent rear on germinated seed, greenfood and hard boiled egg, I intend using my Bengalese cocks to do the job. Oh yes, I ought to mention, I have already succeeded in parent rearing Blackcaps on just these three items with no insects.
By the way, Henrik, I just looked at a catalogue that I have from Orlux. It says that 100 grams of ant pupae costs almost 10 Euros. At this price, I am wondering how the people on this forum can afford to buy ant pupae to supply it every day to their African estrildids.

William

 

[Christian]

Hi again William!

Bluecap Cordons are tough to breed & raise successfully!! They take TONS & TONS of meal worms when breeding & feeding babies. I have found that my two pairs also require a lot of egg food daily and LOTS of privacy.

In Germany we have a birds magazin called WP-Magazin. In the current issue there is an article about Uraeginthus, written by Horst Bielfeld, a famous german breeder and author. He reports, that privacy and tons of different insect food is important to avoid fledglings being tossed out of the nest. That sounds to me, that feeding many different insects is the key, because he also reports, that not all couples need that much privacy, some couples don't mind nest control.

 

[William Astor]

Hello Steffi,

You wrote...
In addition to lettuce (which they like most!), cucumber and rasped
carrots I serve the following fresh herbs (in parentheses the Latin
terms): chickweed (Stellaria media), dandelion (Taracaxum officinale),
shepherd´s purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris), parsley (Petroselinum crispum),
ribwort (Plantago lanceolata) and plantain (Plantago major). While the
Mannikins like all of the offered plants, the Munias are a little bit
harder to please. When I offer lettuce, they disdain the other plants.

In English you say grated carrot not rasped carrot. I see what you mean by herbs. I also like supplying fresh wild flowers like those you mention and fresh wild grasses that are now started to grow in the countryside. I find it interesting that they go to eat some of these straightaway but avoid others. I also find that they love wheat grass very much. I was reading that wheat grass is quite a miracle food for it contains a lot of goodness in it.

By the way, can you please find out for me the Latin and if you are lucky, the English name of small granular, three-colored “ Mohairhirse “ please ? Apparently this seed is much liked by exotic finches of Lagonosticta genus.

>That´s why I give them a lot of half-ripe millet-seed (I get it from a
farmer, who cultivates it especially for bird-keepers, and then I freeze
it) and/or germinating seed.

Instead of freezing it, isn’t it possible to simply hang it up to dry like spray millet and then place it in a box with ventilation in a cold dry room.

>Concerning the livefood-problems, perhaps you can get live pinkies in a
"fishing-shop" (is it the right word?)

fishing tackle shop is the word.

Yes I can buy blowfly larvae from these shops but as I explained to Henrik I have stopped doing this. Too much hassle.

>My Mannikins don´t get frozen ant pupae but dried ones. I rehydrate them with a few drops of boiling water or mix them with rasped carrots.

Do the finches like rehydrated ant pupae as much as frozen ant pupae ?
Can you tell me how much they are per 100 grams, both dry and frozen ?

Maybe Henrik is on the right way - what size do your indoor flights
have? Are there any plants in the cages?
How many bluecaps and orange cheeks do you have?

Believe it or not, I still have to build breeding flights. At the moment I have a flock altogether with 3 pairs or more of several species. I know this is all wrong but I have not had time yet to build breeding flights. Yes they have plant cover.

Thank you Steffi and thank you Christian for your feedback.

William

 

[henrik]

Hi once again William,

It seems likely that the problems from your american cited article is due to introduction to new food. From own experinces as well as Christians posting I believe that it's the variety that does the trick. Don't serve just mealworms and grated hardboiled eggs. There must be more to choose from, and not necessarily tonns of each item.

I feed different live items, but as you're onto yourself It's the ant pupae which is the key factor in my opinnion.

And yes they cost more than a small fortune, so I buy some and collect some on my own. In a lawn you will find many tiny ant heaps if you look closely. try to cover such a heap with a ceramic pot, and within a few days the ants will use it as an artificial ant heap. They fill it with escavated earth, and depending on the wheather they store their pupae inside the pot (for heating or drying in cold or damp wheather as well as every morning), You can collect the pupae every 10-14 days from each port for a couple of months from late May till end July.

Furthermore I breed fruitfly indoor and I feed a lot of different aphids from the garden as well. And ofcourse I feed mealworms too as they are cheap (but it's essential that you feed them properly - chick starter + fruits and carrots for moisture).
A final trick of mine is that I collect spider eggs each spring. Early april you can find yellowish or whitish spider web cocoons in creaks and similar small sheltered enclosures. Firewood stacks are a certain hit. Collect these little cocoons and bring them indoor, within a few days to 3 weeks most of them will hatch a nuber of tiny spiders - which are wery popular with the birds. Kept outdoor (away from the sun) or even in a fridge they will last quite a bit (couple of months in the fridge). Do keep them away from the birds till they're hatched as most birds tend to use them as building material.

Take care
Henrik