Finch Fest

New Finch Cage Setup

Here's a photo of the way my finch cages are set up right now.  I have eight zebra finches: three couples and two bachelors.  Paul and Tippy are upstairs, pied Sandy (not Spot!) and Little Girl are in the middle and Randy and Fay are downstairs.  Andy is on top of Clay on the TV.  I think in the photo only Sandy, Little Girl, Andy and Clay are visible.  You'd probably need a magnifying glass to see them.

A few days after Squeaks died, Randy became Fay's new mate.  He moved in to her cage and they lived happily enough together for a couple weeks, but no sex.  It was like they were roommates.   She enjoyed having the company.  He enjoyed exploring a new cage.  Sex didn't seem to cross either of their minds.

Well, that's changed.  He nailed her good yesterday.  She chased him around some last night.  And Randy's back to swinging.

He's the zebra finch who has his tail worn down from clinging to the side of the hardware cloth cage and yanking on the swing.  When he does that, his tail goes through the openings in the cage wall and frays.  He doesn't care.  He's having fun.

When he lived alone, he didn't swing.  We began to wonder if he didn't feel like it, or if he felt there was no point if he didn't have a female to show off for. 

At the moment everyone seems really happy.  I have all five cages together.  The three cages containing couples are stacked on the table, and the two bachelors' cages are stacked on the TV that's on the table.  I was concerned that Paul wouldn't like Andy's cage beside him, because Andy's cage is a half-step higher than Paul's.  For awhile Paul wasn't happy unless his cage was highest of all.  Now it seems he and Tippy enjoy having a neighbor.  Andy certainly enjoys having neighbors after being off by himself on the Juki for months.

There's all kinds of excited chatter among the five cages, so apparently this is a happy arrangement.  Everyone's feeling fine.  Tippy is thriving on a regimen of five drops of Systemajuv Monday through Saturday and ProBac Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  It's been weeks since she has exploded diarrhea everywhere.  Thank goodness!  She feels good enough that she's laying eggs regularly again.

Her mate Paul has an overgrown beak.  He has a slender point sticking out in a hooked curve, so narrow and thin it looks like it could easily break.  I've been waiting for it to break, because they freaked out so badly when I tried to catch him to trim it last time.  I'm going to have to catch him when he's asleep and trim it off because it's not breaking off and it looks like he could put somebody's eye out if he's not careful.  He eats fine, yanks on a swing, transports egg shells up from the floor into the nesting houses or, better yet, drops them with a crash to the floor.  Great fun.

I don't know why he developed an overgrown beak after all these years trouble-free.  I'm experimenting with Vita-Pak and various foods to see what nutrient he may be needing more of.  Haven't discovered a cure yet.

Death of a Squeaks

Squeaks up and died February 9.  There was no warning that it would happen that day.  He made love with his mate the day before and seemed fine.  Except...

Remember how he made his sad sound months ago, as if he was mourning the loss of his mate again?   I dosed him with ProBac and Systemajuv and VitaPak and Trace Minerals, trying to ensure that he was as healthy as possible.  And that helped a lot.  He got over the constant sad sound, but retained a  tendency to make it from time to time over the last year.  We heard his sad sound very little lately. 

Then one day it was back.  It was a very cold day and I didn't have the TV on, so his cage on top of the TV wasn't as warm as usual.  It dawned on me that there used to be a cage above him and it maybe provided a lid of sorts, maybe helped the cage be just a tad warmer.  I had shifted that other cage across the room and Squeaks and Fay were all alone up there.

I swapped cages around and put his cage directly on the table where he should be able to enjoy closer access to  warmth from the furnace.  There were two cages stacked on top and the TV to one side.  Best of all for me, he was right by the sewing machine and easy for me to see him and interact with him.  He liked it there.

He seemed fine in the morning of the day he died, then suddenly I noticed him on the floor breathing fast and looking out of it.  Joe picked him up to see if there was anything to do for him.  Squeaks was so far gone, he didn't seem to know or care that he was caught and held.  Uh-oh.  Joe put him back into the cage and we put food and a lid of water on the floor beside him.  He didn't seem to notice or care. 

He was still alive an hour later.  Joe picked him up again, mourning his favorite finch not feeling well, maybe dying.  There was still absolutely no response from Squeaks.  No struggles, no fear.  Joe put him into a nesting house in hopes of making Squeaks more comfortable.  We were startled twenty minutes later when Squeaks flew out of there and landed on the floor.  His wings worked in a sputtery way.  His legs seemed not to work at all. 

Another hour passed and his breathing was shallower, maybe faster.  Poor baby, we kept thinking.  How long would this go on?  I'd become used to the finches just falling over dead.  It was difficult to see the longer process. 

The next time we looked he was nose down and his legs stuck out straight behind him  It was a variation on all the cartoons of a dead bird on its back with feet sticking up.  It was over.  I appreciated the sure signal.

That little no-neck fellow was the sweetest boy finch we ever had.