Finch Information

Aviaries:

All our finches are bred in large outdoor aviaries sizes range from 3m x 3m to 10m x 6m. The collection is mixed.

We don’t use heating in our aviaries. We do supply night lights that come on from dusk to dawn (we use a 12volt garden light system for this).

All of our planted aviaries have a feed catching room approx 1m x 2m in size. We have artificial lights that come on at 3 am until daylight each day to provide more time for the birds to feed.

Diet:

Our finches are fed on our own mixture which includes greens every second day. Alternate days they are offered live food – maggots and mealworms with a mixture of egg and biscuit.

Worming:

Every 3 months birds are treated with Baycox (for the control of coccidiosic) and an appropriate wormer is also used. Birds are also wormed 3 days prior to shipping.

De-stressing:

All young finches are removed from the breeding aviaries and placed in the holding cabinets 3m x 1m until sold.

Breeding:

Living in a very cold climate of Victoria, we find it necessary to lock our finches down during the colder months.

So at the end of April all breeding stock is locked down into three feeding/catching rooms which join there planted aviaries.

During the finches lock down period they are all placed on a basic seed diet wormed twice and treated for coccidiosic and any other parasites or health issues we may find at this time.

During this time new stock birds are added and older birds are removed and catching birds for identification rings is easier and are placed on all the breeding stock.

Some of the more aggressive finch cocks are removed and placed into holding cages this time.

While birds are locked down it gives us a good chance to clean out all there nesting sites and remove all the old bracken from the previous breeding season. Shrubs are all pruned back and new bracken is placed back in the planted areas.

Our floors of our planted aviaries are also topped up. For this we use washed river sand as it drains well after the aviaries are cleaned and ready for the next coming breeding season. We lightly sow half of the planted sections with wheat and barley and some millets to give it a lush green effect for when the finches are released back into the aviriaries (we have found our grass and parrot finches really thrive by doing this).

In late July we let the birds back into the planted/breeding areas and are placed on there full breeding diets with live food (maggots/mealworms), greens, soft foods, and all breeding aids being offered on a daily basis.

We remove all young birds via the feeding rooms once they are weaned and independent from mum and dad. All young are placed in smaller aviaries and holding cages until sold.