Whose The Daddy?

[finchly]

She’s starting to wean herself!
Soak a millet stalk in warm water 30 minutes. Or sprout it!.

keep offering chop- she’ll come around.

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

She’s starting to wean herself!

That's what I was hoping for, it just seems a bit early to be weaned enough to eat so little. And I fed her just now, and same thing. Fed her barely anything despite her begging for food non stop as I prepared it. Got maybe a spoonful worth of food before she stopped chirping and started pulling away whenever I tried to feed her.

But I'll just keep offering her the finch pellets, soaked millet, and chop for now. As long as she looks healthy, I guess I'll be fine.

Also the fact that my baby finches get fed every 30 minutes kinda adds onto the fear. Granted, they're still in their nest all day and have 3 parents to feed them, so it's more understandable.

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Day 23:

Thankfully she started eating normally again. I fed her till her crop was visibly full 4 times today. So must have just been something weird going on.

Feel like I haven't taken a side profile picture in awhile, so here's one showing her from beak to tail.



I just can't but think how much of a Brown Sugar clone she is. They practically look and act identical down to the head movements and everything. Just a bit darker.

But this afternoon when it was time for her "after work" feeding, I was feeling lazy laying down watching tv with her, I was feeding her as she was hanging out on my lap. About 10 seconds into it I guess she felt it wasn't close enough to my face so she decided to fly onto my chest.



Not sure if it was an accident on her part, but she stayed there until she was done eating then proceed to fly to the couch cushions and hop around for a bit. So she's starting to get some flying down, just nothing major just yet. Just 2 feet or so. Was expecting her to be more flighty at this age, but at least it helps me get more time in to build a stronger bond.

 

[finchly]

That’s awesome!

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Looks like the baby finches are starting to leave the nest.



It's entertaining watching them "daring" each other to leave the nest. One would peak out, then the others would peck at them to try and push them out, then they'll panic and go back inside. It's quite amusing.

Since they seem to be mostly fully feathered now, and are getting comfortable leaving the nest, I'll probably swap out the nest tomorrow. The current nest is nasty due to it being covered in poop for the last 3 weeks. It grosses me out whenever I look at it..

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

The finches left the nest today! I came into my office this morning and found the one I posted yesterday hoping around. A few minutes later the other 2 followed. So I went ahead and swapped out their nasty nest for a nice fresh clean new one. I also decided to get some photos of them for documentation purposes.

So here's the daddy Oreo:



The other male in my cage Cookies and Cream:



The mother, Peanut Butter. She doesn't like the phone for some reason so couldn't get a good photo of her:



And then the babies!

Double Stuffed Oreo (He/She looks just like their father):



Smores:



And Butterscotch:

 

[zoo mom]

So cute. And I love the names

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

As of yesterday, Lemon Pepper is officially a month old!








She's still very tame which is nice, but she's also in full flight mode! I came home on Saturday and went to the cage I have to feed her, and she immediately flew at me scaring the crap out of me and perched on my shoulder. When I started to feed her she couldn't sit still. She flew to my shoulder, my head, the table, my wrist, everywhere! Was quite the circus act to try and feed her.

Now she spends her time flying around my office all day harassing my finches and her parents and on the occasion, me. And speaking of the devil, I swear this is some kind of magical power I have, as I was typing this up she decided to start harassing me and is nibbling on my monitor.



But whenever she gets hungry she likes to land of my hand and nip at my fingers, and if I ignore her because I'm in the middle of working, she'll hop around my keyboard preventing me from typing. She's a bit of a brat.





Glad she made it to a month old since I feel if a bird makes it to a month, they should survive well into adulthood. She feeds herself a lot now, but I still feed her a couple of times a day. Hoping she'll be fully independent by the end of the weekend, but I kinda doubt it. Which is fine since I'll miss those bonding moments.

Also caught a family photo of all the finches yesterday.



Oreo likes to mount his children, which is a bit unfortunate, but they're all hoping and flying around on their own at this point as well. I found them a couple of times eating and drinking on their own, and the 3 parent finches are teaching them how to take baths as well. It's hilarious to watch them flap around in an attempt to dry themselves off while sitting on a perch and constantly fumbling around.

Also, I noticed Smores and Double Stuffed puffing up, dancing, and "singing" like male finches. I assume this is wayyy too early for it to be an actual singing session, but is it possible for finches to start doing a mating ritual at 28 days old..? They're very clumsy and unrefined, but I swear it looks a lot like the male dance. I tried to get a video of it, but of course every time I start recording they stop.

 

[finchly]

Yeah it’s not too early for the practice posturing.
Lemon Pepper is starting to look like a grownup!

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Yeah it’s not too early for the practice posturing.
Lemon Pepper is starting to look like a grownup!

Very interesting.. I wasn't expecting them to even attempt to sing until Halloween at the earliest. Guess I gotta keep an eye on them. Was really hoping for females since, excluding the babies, I have 6 males and 2 females. So it would seem that ratio is even more out of wack with potential 2 more males added to the flock.

And yeah she's starting to get that beautiful Canary tail! Whenever she's sitting on top of either the finch cages her tail pokes 3 inches or so into it, and if it's on a spot where they perch, they'll nip at her tail causing her to stick her head a bit through the bars and nip at them back.

But here's some footage I got of Smores "singing". The 2nd video I feel may be him asking for food, but the 1st one really does look like he's attempting to sing.

http://imgur.com/PH5GjOe

http://imgur.com/B7VQ36K

He does it quite a lot too. I haven't paid much attention to it today, but I'll definitely keep an eye out for the other 2 doing it.

 

[Pat H]

Wish I could hear him... the sound is not coming thru...

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Weird, works fine for me.

But here's a video of it on YouTube:

 

[FrogsGoMoo]

Lemon Pepper has been in major cleaning mode lately. She likes to fly around and preen everything in sight. Everyone's cage, seeds that fell onto my desk from the finch cage, and even myself. She'll zoom across the room and land on me and preen me for a solid 10-15 minutes.

Monday she wouldn't leave my hands alone and insisted on preening them:

Then yesterday she did the same thing with my hair:

And then last night I caught her taking her first bath in her water dish:




I love the wet Canary look. Reminds me of a wet Golden Retriever.

She's also ridiculously fast at flying now whenever she gets the zoomies. It honestly surprises me. She'll fly circles around my room at super-fast speeds that I get scared she'll smack into something and hurt herself.

She's also mostly weened as well. I ran out of the hand feeding formula last week and have been using a mix of the Canary pellets, egg food, and a pinch of Paprika to the mix as well for color feeding. I expect her to have started her first molt later this month so figured I'd try and color feed since she does have red in her genes, and who knows how red Paprika's parents were. I've also placed fresh carrots in her cage which she absolutely loves, and some color supplements into her water. But she hardly eats from me anymore. She'll chirp for food, I feed her a couple of bites, then she'll fly off of my hands into her cage and eat the dry finch pellets, millet, and carrots instead.

...I also think she knows I'm talking about her..