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About this blog

Well, I got my first 6 finches at Stafford in October - just before my birthday - I didn't know that I wanted to take up bird keeping as a hobby but there it was - my birthday present! My partner used to keep budgies but gave them up when he got divorced but wanted to get back into the hobby. His thoughts - if he has budgies and I have finches I can clean out his cages when I do mine (a typical man!). So there I was, the proud owner of 2 cock and 4 hen zebra finches.

I spent the next few weeks looking up genetics, colour variations, diet, breeding advice and anything else I could read - if anyone had told me a year ago - even 2 months ago - that my spare time would be spent googling finch information I would not have believed them!

I joined the Zebra Finch Society and have ordered my rings for birds born next year so am carefully keeping males and females separate until December - I don't want any accidents! (I am a family planning nurse - I am fully aware that accidents happen!!)

Today we trekked up North and acquired another 10 cocks and 10 hens, I'm not sure that we meant to end up with that many................

I'm now studying the birds I have for colours, shape etc to make sure that I make up the best possible pairs. I bought a set of 8 breeding cages so will just put down 8 pairs at first - but which ones........ I'm very excited to see what comes out!

My partner will be building me an outdoor aviary ready for the spring, I am very excited to see it al come together. We are imminently going to move house (solicitors permitting) and so the new bird room has been made and dismantled in kit form so it can be reassembled in a few hours - very exciting.

I tried to upload some pictures but my compute crashed! Maybe another day.........

 

 

 

Entries in this blog

 

bird room finished!

We moved into our house 6 months ago and have worked hard since then. We have hardly touched the house but the garden and bird house have had a lot of tie and effort spent on them. Before we moved we were planning on a bird house approx. 8x6'. When we first moved we had to set the birds up in the garage - far from ideal but they were OK. Before we got around to building out smallish bird house we saw a shed being sold off which was perfect, just a bit bigger - well, a lot bigger to be precise -

Penny W

Penny W

 

fledglings

My first proper round of babies are beginning to leave the nest now. The chick in the picture is pure white (smudge from camera lens over left eye!) - no tear mark - parents are both CFW (Shame my camera has a black mark in the centre of the lens!)  

Penny W

Penny W

 

expanding outlook

This bird keeping hobby is taking over! Today we went to a bird sale and came back with a pair of Bicheno (owl) finches and a pair of firetails. Both beautiful birds, this is for our aviary scheduled to be up and running this spring, oh, and I managed to acquire 6 more zebras - not quite sure how ;-) The pair of finches I put down as I left for holiday had one egg (from 5) hatch yesterday - no others have hatched so I'm thinking they may be no good - well, one baby, 2 parents, it should be

Penny W

Penny W

 

a newbies view

About this blog Well, I got my first 6 finches at Stafford in October - just before my birthday - I didn't know that I wanted to take up bird keeping as a hobby but there it was - my birthday present! My partner used to keep budgies but gave them up when he got divorced but wanted to get back into the hobby. His thoughts - if he has budgies and I have finches I can clean out his cages when I do mine (a typical man!). So there I was, the proud owner of 2 cock and 4 hen zebra finches.

Penny W

Penny W

 

My first babies

I'm on holiday, left my birds with my stepson. Today he sent me a picture of my first 2 babies with their parents, fledged and doing well. Very pleased with them. My partner thinks probably clock birds, how long before this is obvious?

Penny W

Penny W

 

One week later

Last week we looked at possible pairings for the finches, think we have made the right decision - but plenty of time to change our minds - have moved them into different cages - double breeding cages, currently got 2 hens in one side and 2 cocks in the other with a solid divider between. Mind you, today I found one of the cocks peeking around the end of the divider to see the hens - and one of the hens flirting back! I don't want them breeding quite yet as I want to use my 2016 zfs rings when I

Penny W

Penny W

 

Flu! (human, not bird!)

Having moved house my body decided that the stresses involved in house moving were too much and my body has gone into meltdown. For the past week I have been almost bedridden with high fevers and feeling rubbish, when I have a window of feeling slightly better I pop out to the birds, check a few cages, then collapse back into my bed - it's rubbish! Steve has been working hard - at his job, then DIY around the new house and keeping on top of the birds, I just hope he doesn't catch this bug off me

Penny W

Penny W

 

too many cocks spoil the show team!

I have bred some lovely zebras this year, the problem is only 2 of them are hens! The 2 hens are fawns, the cocks are normal and penguin so it looks like I won't have any current year pairs to show. I've just put some more pairs down so fingers crossed ....... I have had a frustrating time with some of my other finches too. I have one pair of Hecks who have had 2 rounds, each round they have fed the babies until they have feathers, then they stop feeding them and the babies die. They curren

Penny W

Penny W

 

There is an egg!

Well, today there was an egg in the nest box - but neither finch was in there and it felt quite chilled - is this normal?? Should they not be making an effort to keep the egg warm?? Or do they not incubate until they have laid the whole clutch??

Penny W

Penny W

 

Not a great day

Today I attended the funeral of a 48 year old work colleague, a distressing time. So nice to get home and spend some time with the birds. Very therapeutic cleaning cages, replacing seed and water etc. (I never would have believed this 3 months ago!) My 'couple' are still busy incubating their 4 eggs - they stopped laying 2 days ago so I'm expecting news in about a fortnight (I think)  

Penny W

Penny W

 

and there are more....

I started my zebra collection with 6 -  this has now increased to 38 (I think - but they don't sit still!). Every time we go out we seem to acquire a few more! Last week I paired my best birds and now have 5 boxes with eggs! Tho original pair that I put together laid their first egg 2 weeks ago - I was worried as they didn't seem to want to incubate, however once there were 4 eggs they incubated and today, less than 2 weeks after the last egg I have a chick! I thought it took longer but there is

Penny W

Penny W

 

Stranger in the camp

I was sold a bird last week and told it was a white, black faced cock. I didn't really want it, but it came as half of a pair, the hen being a normal which is what I was looking for. I'm not convinced it is a cock - to the extent that I have put him/her in my cage of hens and he/she is not creating havoc! I posted a picture on some facebook pages and the general consensus is that it is a hen, possibly grey cheek cfw. Anyone else got any good ideas?

Penny W

Penny W

 

good news, and bad, and more good news

Well, three of the four eggs hatched but yesterday one of the chicks was dead in the nest, it was well fed but appeared to have been flattened by the parents :-( The last egg is still in the nest - should I remove it or wait until the parents throw it out?? Of my other pairs I now have 6 pairs with eggs 27 eggs so far! Our candling torch has arrived and it appears that most of the eggs are fertile, maybe I should have ordered more than 20 ZFS rings!! My finches are definitely doin

Penny W

Penny W

 

moving house

Well, last week saw us moving house. No mean feat with a shed full of birds! Fortunately we were able to get access to the garage the night before the official moving date so we moved the birds then. That night I had a dream that one of the cages of budgies had managed to escape.  My partner went to the  new house with a van load of stuff,  opened the garage door - and out flew a budgie! My dream had been true! The rest of the birds had survived the move and we even had 2 finches and 1 budgie ha

Penny W

Penny W

 

Show time

I decided I ought to take my birds to a show, to see how they compare so entered a few pairs into the ZFS show in Barry last month. I didn't win anything but my normal were placed in a large class which was nice for me. My lightbacks were my best pair in my eyes - but there were only 2 in that class so coming second didn't really tell me whether they are good or not (the pair that came first went on to win one of the top prizes). This weekend it was our local bird club show so Steve and I e

Penny W

Penny W

 

Thinking about next year

Well, I paid my subs for the ZFS again and have ordered my rings ready for January, so now it's time to think about who will produce my youngsters! I spent last week sorting out all my stock, I have a few youngsters that were born in July, August and September so I returned them to their respective flights. I then sorted the cocks and hens into 'mine' and those bought in. This weekend I sorted out all my breeding cages while observing my birds to decide who should pair with who (referencing

Penny W

Penny W

 

0-170 in less than 2 years!

If anyone had mentioned bird keeping to me 2 years ago I would have been surprised, it was not something I had ever considered. However, my partner had previously kept budgies and had a hankering to get back into the hobby. He took a sly approach by taking me to Stafford in October 2015 and buying me half a dozen zebra finches for my birthday the following week! - a cunning ploy! Anyway I embraced the hobby but never really thought that I would get too involved. I remember Emmy commenting o

Penny W

Penny W

 

10 months on

I haven't updated this for nearly 10 months - very lax of me! I still have my zebs - rather a lot in fact (to think that 4 years ago I had none). I bred some late last year as well as this year so have about 100 youngsters - 60 of which have this years rings. I know I need to shift some but I never know who needs to go, maybe I'll wait until they are a bit older?! I have tried some new mutations this year with some creams and one grey cheek cock and one fawn cheek hen. So far the fawn cheek hen

Penny W

Penny W

 

And then there were 4!

There are now 4 eggs and one or both of the finches is in the nest box at all times. Fingers crossed that the eggs are fertile. Time will tell. We are off to the Welsh National Show this weekend, just to see what is out there. This finch hobby is a bit addictive!  

Penny W

Penny W

 

experimenting with mutations

I may be new to this game but I am trying to get on top of different mutations, I like the penguins, and have a pair, but they are both quite small so I have paired them with better sized birds with the view to next year crossing the babies and getting some bigger penguins (well, that is the plan). Last weekend I managed to acquire a large penguin cock and have paired him up - but so far, no eggs - we'll see. I also have several split black cheek chicks - with the intention of breeding some of m

Penny W

Penny W

 

my growing babies

Bearing in mind that 6 months ago I would never have believed that I would own zebra finches I am really please with the way my babies are colouring up, hopefully I can upload some pictures

Penny W

Penny W

 

update

When I started my blog I had half a dozen finches (late last year). Emmy commented that 6 often turns into many more, well yesterday I had a count up - 84 plus 6 tiny chicks and several eggs being incubated! Hmm, time for a bit of a sort out methinks! Our new bird house and aviary is taking shape in the garden, can't wait until it is up and running, we might need a bigger one before we move in if I'm not careful!  

Penny W

Penny W

 

I'm a Granny (sort of)

12 months ago I had no idea that I would own any birds, in fact if anyone had told me I wouldn't have believed them! BUT, in October I got my first birds. I was impatient to pair up and put one pair down too early to use 2016 ZFS rings. The net result was 2 chicks, only one of those survived. I put a split ring on him so I knew which one he was. Anyway, I paired him up a few weeks ago, result 6 fertile eggs, 2 hatched yesterday and one today (but that baby was dead and the parents through it out

Penny W

Penny W

 

12 new finches, but some losses too

Today I got 12 new finches (none of which were zebras I'm afraid). We have had 2 bicheno (owl) finches since December and although they built a lovely nest and spent a lot of time in it, they never laid an egg which got me wondering if they were both male. Last weekend when talking to a breeder of bichenos he said to sex them put them in separate cages so they cannot see each other but can hear each other. Males will start to sing very quickly. We caught them up and took them down to the house t

Penny W

Penny W

 

All change!

I keep my hen and cock zebras in separate flights. So far it is has been the hens, and the foreigns having access to the outside flight. Today it was time for a swap. the flight cages are designed so this swap can be done without having to catch all the birds so it was just a case of encouraging the hens into one long flight cage and the cocks into another then opening different doors and voila - their accommodation is swapped over. It didn't take the cocks long to realise they could go out into

Penny W

Penny W

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