Need help with birds

Life Pets & Other Animals
#1

I’m looking after two wee birdies for a friend for the next three weeks. Tiny white finches of some kind with red bills.
As soon as I take the cover off their cage in the morning they start fucking. Plus, the male is pecking the feathers off the back and neck of the female, leaving bald patches.
They also appear to be trying to build a nest.
Does anybody have any experience of keeping birds? It looks like they’re using the plucked feathers to make their nest – would the plucking stop if I put some bits of wool or something in their cage, or would they strangle themselves with it or get poisoned or something?
I don’t want my friend to come home to a corpse.

Help!

#2

Oh, those kinds of birds. Sorry I can’t help you.

#3

in these days of bird flu epidemy…yours seems quite healthy :slight_smile:

birdx

#4

Maybe somone here birding.about.com/mpboards.htm can answer your question!

#5

[quote]Male: All white feathering. Legs and beak retain the orange/red coloring of the normal. Males can be determined by their bright red beaks and their song.

Female: All white feathering like the males. Females can be determined by their orange rather than red beaks. They also do not sing.

[/quote]
Well, both of mine sing, so OMG! I’m keeping homosexual zebra finches! Just goes to show – I have absolutely NO gaydar.

#6

I read your first post and thought they might be of the same sex.
I assume the birds were together in the first place, so the picking at each other might be stress. Either divide the cage with something like a screen, or flush them down the toilet and buy two more just before your friend comes back. Those kind of birds are cheap.

#7

I must confess I hadn’t thought of that. Not! :wink:
But it will be a last resort.

#8

Toilets in Taiwan won’t be able to handle birds. Don’t flush them. Do they have names?

#9

My two are lesbians - one lays eggs, both hens fuss around them for a week or two, feathering the nest with dog hair and being generally broody, then I chuck the eggs out and it all starts again! Think we need to do a swap - or at least collaborate on an academic paper about situational homosexulity in zebra finches! :smiley:

#10

I don’t quite get the relationship between the first two sentences and the question at the end.

Sandman, do you want to borrow my cat for a while? She would be glad to help, and she doesn’t sing.

More solutions: debeaking, bromide, glueing them at opposite sides of the cage, keeping them covered up permanently, varnish, taking them to work in your pockets, buying an inflatable female finch, getting drunk, dyeing them different colours so they don’t recognise each other, castration, getting them drunk.

#11

Birds like it if you stroke them.

#12

I agree, it sounds stress-related, perhaps due to the move to your apt or just because such creatures are neurotic by nature. I’d try to do everything to reduce their stress: keep them far from dogs, cats, children and loud noises, maybe cover their cage with a cloth, and try singing to them. . . or stop singing to them. And don’t stroke them where it causes stress.

#13

[quote=“stragbasher”]Sandman, do you want to borrow my cat for a while? She would be glad to help, and she doesn’t sing.[/quote]But your cat’s pointless, he’ll probably make them a cup of tea.

#14

I had a goldfish called Flushy.

#15

[quote=“sandman”]I’m looking after two wee birdies for a friend for the next three weeks. Tiny white finches of some kind with red bills.
As soon as I take the cover off their cage in the morning they start fucking. Plus, the male is pecking the feathers off the back and neck of the female, leaving bald patches.
They also appear to be trying to build a nest.
Does anybody have any experience of keeping birds? It looks like they’re using the plucked feathers to make their nest – would the plucking stop if I put some bits of wool or something in their cage, or would they strangle themselves with it or get poisoned or something?
I don’t want my friend to come home to a corpse.

Help![/quote]

We had two birds fitting your description - now we only have one. :cry:
I have not idea about the sex of the bird(s), but when they were two, it was a constant egg production without any chickens as result.
Anyway, they were frequently fighting - maybe one of them was raping the other. :noway:
After we found one of them dead, there has been no more eggs. I have no idea how we could have prevented the death, but maybe it died of exhaustion. We should probably have separated them.

RIP Little bird.
Final resting place; in the hillside on the way to Pinglin :cry:

#16

What’s wrong with them fucking? At least they have each other, unlike my poor lonely bird back home. As for the feather plucking, try to give them some cotton as you mentioned, or some shredded newspaper. If that doesn’t work, maybe then seperation would be best.
Good luck!