Finch Fest

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.

Trials of A Lady Finch Alone

And then there was one...female zebra finch. 

Everything has changed with Lucille's flock of zebra finches since the death of Sue.  Suddenly there was only one female zebra finch in a flock of males and two society finches. 

And life became hell for Fizzy.  She's our oldest bird, but you'd never know it looking at her.  She's still in perfect shape, lively, sassy and enjoying life.  That is, until Sue died.  All at once Fizzy couldn't make a move without the males chasing her.

If she tried to stay in a nesting house, someone would come chase her out.  If she came out to eat, she was lucky to get a bite before a male was trying to mount her.  If she came out to drink, same thing.  And you could just forget a bath entirely!  No way would the males let her alone long enough for that.  They stalked and circled like vultures, jumped her time and again,  and competed with each other to win her.  Never mind that she HAD a mate.

There was no way Lucille could let this go on.  Fizzy would be dead in no time, worn out, starved and dehydrated from being chased pillar to post all the live-long day by males with no mates.

There was only one thing Lucille could do about this.  After she turned out the light at bedtime and the birds all selected their favorite spot for sleeping, Lucille snuck in the room and closed the cage doors.  No longer would her birds be allowed to fly free.  She expected an uproar the next morning when they discovered the closed doors. 

Nothing.  A couple finches seemed surprised at the closed cage door.  They looked at her expecting her to open it.  When she didn't, they seemed to check the room, satisfied themselves that no other birds were out--and got busy with breakfast and home time.

Fizzy was delighted.  She ate like a someone coming off a too-strict diet--gobble, gobble, munch.  She drank her fill.  She stood on a perch and preened herself for a good long time.  Nobody interfered with her in any way.  Sweet.

Lucille was glad for Fizzy and relieved that the boys didn't raise a ruckus about the change.  Lucille set about cleaning the bird room stem to stern and moved her bed back into the room that was formerly her bedroom.  It took all day, as she discovered there was too much furniture, and there was poop absolutely everywhere, and she had to vacuum twice. 

The birds hollered about the vacuuming, same as always.  The birds didn't mind a bit when she came to bed that night. 

To her surprise, they didn't raise a ruckus the next day or the next.  She had to get used to her flock being quiet.  She'd been used to them chasing each other and flying everywhere. 

After a few days, she transfered most of them to a cage tower.  There was more space in each tower cage than there was in the small individual cages.  They liked that.  After a few days, she got to thinking they couldn't see each other while in the tower, so she moved cages around so some boys had neighbors to talk to.

Big mistake.  The boys did nothing but hiss and spit and fly at each other through the bars!  They didn't want neighbors.  They wanted nothing to do with each other.

Huh.

This after years of flying free.  Who'd have thought they'd be so glad to be caged?  And apart?  It's probably because they're males and there are no females for them.  That tends to make the males disfavor other males.  At least that's our theory.  After all these years, finches keep surprising us.

Girl Finches Seeking Divorce

Lynn is a tan zebra finch girl who lived with Randy and seemed perfectly happy for quite some time.  Then she changed her mind, seems like.  She began chasing him around the cage.  It was just once or twice now and then at first, but it got worse as days passed.

"Stop it," I'll tell the finches who are chasing and threatening a partner.  They'll both hold still and blink at me while I'm watching for any false move, but quite often go right back to chasing when I turn away.

Randy got fed up with it one day and chased HER.  He was mean about it and bit her, coming up with a beakful of feathers a few times.  I can't stand that level of aggression.  I warned them that I would separate them.

Randy quit chasing.  The next day Lynn chased him again.  I sighed and went to get the "jail" cage.  I filled the food and water dishes of this medium-sized black cage, threw in an eggshell, and set it door to open door with Randy and Lynn's cage. 

"OK, guys.  One of you move.  I don't care which one."  In truth, sometimes when the birds even see another cage come into the room, they'll settle down and be good.  I was up for that result.

They ignored the other cage--and worse yet, they went back to chasing!  You'd think one of them would fly into it by accident in the flitting and flapping, but nooo.  I left the two cages together most of a day, and angled light behind the jail cage to make it attractive.  Finches often move toward light like sweet little daisies.  Not this time.  Apparently I had two stubborn souls here.

The next day I tried again for about an hour and they ignored the other cage again.  Fed up with the whole deal, I opened the back door and put my hand in their cage to encourage someone to move.  My plan was to take Lynn to Lucille's where she could maybe mate with widower Del and provide Lucille's societies some babies to raise.

Did I ever mention how our tan finches seem to fly really fast?  We call them tan rockets.   

I must have tried for a good solid five minutes to get one of them to move into the other cage.  I waved my hand around, tried to block, tried to herd, then tried to catch.  I hate that.  They get upset.  I get upset.  They get tired.  I get tired.  Sometimes it's because they get tired that I can finally get hold of one in a corner, poor thing. 

Suddenly Randy flew into the other cage.  Now to close three cage doors without a bird escaping or him coming back.  It turned into a mess because the door latch on the jail cage embedded itself in the wall of the flight cage and wouldn't come out until I grabbed pliers.  I didn't have enough hands for all this, so my husband came to help.

Phew!  So Randy lived in the jail cage on top of their flight cage for a couple days.  This was just in case Lynn had second thoughts about her dissatisfaction with Randy.  She didn't.  They didn't call for each other all that day.  The next morning he hollered like the males often do when they can't see their mate.  And like the females often do when the males holler like that, she kept her beak buttoned and refused to answer.

Meantime, Lynn acted like she was at a resort and had a grand time bopping all around that big cage all by herself.  No pining away, no calling, no eyeballing him above her.  She was done with him.

So she went to Lucille's--which involved getting her to move out of the flight cage and into a little transporter cage.  Another stubborn, "I won't go, I won't" on her part, but she finally went into the little cage.  As I carried her out of the house to the car, Randy called for her.  She didn't say a word.

And she didn't want any of Lucille's males either for three days.  She tried them all, but fought with them all to one degree or another.  No matter where she was, when Fred would talk, Lynn would answer, so Lucille thought she wanted Fred.  But when she put them together, Lynn argued with him. 

Heated finch discussions look like clashing swords except it's clashing beaks and pecking at each others beaks.  This is natural for our birds and seems to be how they settle differences of opinion. But it didn't seem Lynn was content there, so Lucille told Lynn she could have a cage to herself.  She set it up and held the open doors together.  Lynn was all, "Nope, I won't go," again.

So Lynn and Fred are now living happily together.  Randy didn't call for her from the time she went out of sight.  I have three couples in three cages and three single fellows in three other cages.  And peace.

For about a week.  Now Fay is chasing Squeaks!  He refuses to fight.  He runs from her and makes a short sound over and over like chalk on a blackboard and it sounds so sad.  I think this may be the end of their happy life together too.  I wonder if she wants one of the single guys.  I see she's looking across the room at Andy and Randy's cages.  Hmm.

Intrepid Finch Explorer

Somehow the new flooring papers didn't overlap in Clay's cage the other day.  They just barely met.  Worse yet, when I set the upper cage down into the bottom tray, the paper on the left buckled and popped up at the center about an inch or so above the vinyl-covered tray.  I tried resettling the upper cage and smoothing the paper under the walls, but it persisted in sticking up in an inch-high arch in the center.  I shrugged my shoulders and left it that way.

Clay was delighted.  As I went to go wash out his water dish, he hopped down to investigate this strange floor mound.  I caught a glimpse of him juking his head down to peek beneath the paper.

When I came back with the fresh water, he was doing his usual thing right after getting freshened up--feasting like a starving bird on the new seeds in the red plastic lid on the floor of his cage.  I rehung his water dish, set his cage back on the TV and moved on to the next of the six cages, thinking no more about Clay's warped flooring.

I had to laugh when it came cage-cleaning time the next day.  The paper was humped up twice as high because Clay was beneath it, as happy as a kid in a blanket "fort."  He went in and out as if to show me what a wonderful place he'd discovered.  The paper's edge ruffled the feathers on his head and back as he passed beneath it--what's left of those feathers, that is.  The back of his head and neck are still bald from the last time his long-deceased mate yanked them out.

"You've been playing under there, eh?" I said, amused at the bald old man finch playing like a kid.  I peeked under to see if he'd furnished the new hidey-hole with yarn, but he hadn't.  There was enough poop to show he'd spent much of the day under that arch.  I wish I'd seen him sitting all pleased with himself and thinking happy thoughts about his nifty new hang-out.

Maybe from time to time I can fold paper into a cube somehow and set it on his floor as a toy for him?  Or make a roll of paper, like a toilet paper tube only bigger so there's room for a curious finch to go inside.  If I set that on his floor, he might play with it.  Yeah.

Murdered Finch Babies

One day Lucille walked into the birdroom and found a dead baby zebra finch on the floor.  It looked about two days old.  She was shocked and horrified.  She didn't even know any birds were sitting on eggs, so whose baby was this?  How on earth did it get so far away from any of the cages?

Then she noticed another one on the floor a couple feet away from the first one.  It looked only a day old.  Her mind reeled.  How could this have happened?  We'd never had babies out on the birdroom floor before.  If they fell out of the nest or were pushed, they landed on the cage floor, no further.

She watched all the birds, looking for some sign of worry or distress to point out who the parents were.  There was no indication at all. 

In the following weeks, she thought and thought how babies could have gotten on the floor and decided it had to be the society finches.  They'd sat on eggs many times that never hatched and societies are known for loving to be foster parents.  Maybe they'd tried to steal and raise the babies?  Societies are slightly bigger than zebras so maybe they could lift and carry babies.  Our zebras never do.

It seemed a horrible mystery we'd never solve.  A couple weeks later she noticed Del and Sue were sitting on eggs.  This was the only couple that weren't related to each other, so she let them keep their eggs.  Maybe these babies would help make up for the lost ones, and maybe the babies would be girls.  We needed girls.  Somehow we had bachelors galore.

Del and Sue subsequently hatched three babies in three days and everything was fine.  Lucille got up to go into the bathroom, but took a look at the babies first, checking to see if their food sacs were full because she wasn't sure she could trust young Sue to be a good parent. 

When she came back a couple minutes later, she found two babies on the floor--dead!  Just like the other time!  And the other baby went missing within twenty minutes and turned up dead in a dish in a cage on the other side of the room!

Lucille realized this had to be deliberate murder.  Del and Sue were baby killers.  When we had babies fall or get tossed out of a nest before, they were usually still alive and well and could be put back and grow up.  These were dead within a couple moments.

And it definitely wasn't the societies at all; they still sat in their nests quiet as mice. 

Del had raised babies successfully when he was Dot's mate.  So was this young Sue's idea of parenting?  And he went along with it?  Or what?

Within two weeks of this second killing, Sue up and died.  This makes us wonder if she'd felt unwell and knew she couldn't have finished raising any babies.  She'd seemed fine. We'll never know.

Tan Finch Goes White

Tess is a tan female about two and a half years old.  So why are her feathers turning white?

Where her hands or fingers would be, the wing feathers are a solid white now.  They didn't used to be.  She's getting paler other places too.  It looks like premature gray.

About the time I noticed this paleness coming on, she got a little brown spot on each side of her beak.  It looked like she'd been eating chocolate and needed to lick her lips.  But it was a mark that didn't wash off.  I started dosing her with Systemajuv and VitaPak and ProBac to see if she needed a little nutritional boost to keep her color and health in full bloom.  The brown spots are about gone, but she's still whitening.

The white is so persistent, I began to wonder if she'd always been that way.  No.  Tess and her sister Bess were identical tan birds born here.  We couldn't tell them apart.  So this is new.  I also bought a plant light and put it in the lamp beside the cages in case she needed good light.  She bathes in the glow.  We'll see what happens.

Her mate has started picking her back feathers again, much to her annoyance.  I may have to put him in a separate cage for a couple weeks again.  It stopped him last time.  She regrew her feathers and looked and felt great, so I brought him back and watched him, and he was good for months.  If she's not feeling her best, he's taking the opportunity to hassle her.  Not nice.

Tess is my little egg-laying machine.  I keep telling her she doesn't need to lay so many.  Maybe she's wearing herself out.  She doesn't listen, just keeps popping them out.  It's another reason why I started dosing her with extra nutrients.  I'm going to get some trace minerals and see if that helps her.  I hope she doesn't take it as a signal to lay even more eggs!

Cussing Finch

After the deaths of Ike and Karen, Lucille had fewer birds than I had.  It was the first time ever, except for when my first birds had their babies.  It just seemed wrong.

So I took Del and Sue to Lucille's.  Del has been caged his whole life.  He's the young fellow who was mated with Dot, an older bird with bad wings.  After she died, a tan female named Sue became his new mate.  She was a go-getter at Lucille's and adapted to caged life at my house easily.  Would Del adapt to flying free as easily?

Oh, yeah!

Sue remembered the birdroom and flew around her old digs right away.  It took him a little while to even venture out of the cage.  I think Lucille had to encourage him out, because my big homemade half-inch hardware cloth cage he was in has sharp edges.  She wanted that cage out of the birdroom before her birds landed on them and cut their feet.

Del explored a bit that first day until he found another cage he felt he could park himself in.  Lucille has way more cages than necessary to her way of thinking, but the birds have their own ideas of who can have what cage from one day to the next.  He got chased away from any cage currently occupied.

About a week later he showed me how well he could fly, zooming around the birdroom in a big loop while I was there.  Was he saying, "No need to take me back, I'm doing great here."? 

But we had another problem.

Little Girl was cussing a blue streak from morning to night and getting everyone upset and flighty.  We don't know why, unless she took one look at tan Sue and thought she was the tan hussy who stole her former mate away from her.  Or that Sue would steal her current mate away from her.  Lucille endured three long days of the cussing and fussing, hoping she'd quit.

No way.  So I brought Little Girl and her mate Sandy home.  He's the pied boy who has a spot on his chest that you dare not mention or he yanks it out.  Sandy had flown free his whole life.  Would he like living in a big cage at my house?  He was an expert at sneaking out past Lucille's hands when she wanted him to stay in a cage, so I prepared for the worst.

He seemed to get the idea within hours that at my house, nobody flies free.  He seemed fine with that, never offered to sneak out past my hands during cage cleaning.  Phew!  He does aerobics a lot.  He flies from one end to the other with a little hover and plop on the right-hand perch.  Sometimes he lands on a swing midway. 

How about the cussing finch?  Did she keep on cussing?  Not a word.  She's happy and quiet.  Maybe too quiet.  Their cage is in the "dead corner" where other birds have gone too quiet.  She spends almost all day in a little round nesting house in the corner, seems happy there, but she was out and about at Lucille's more than this. 

Tonight when I clean cages, I'll swap cages around and put Little Girl and Sandy on the table where Randy and Lynn are.  Lately Lynn's been pecking at Randy and chasing him during cage cleaning, so she could stand to go a little quiet for awhile.    Randy's got energy to burn, like Sandy.  He plays with his swing all day, clinging to the front wall and yanking on it, swinging on it, fraying his tail in the hardware cloth.  Wonderful times, according to him.

Sudden Finch Deaths, New Pairing

One day Lucille discovered a dead male zebra finch.  "Oh, it's Mike," she thought.  Mike's been hobbling around on stumps because he keeps mutilating his toes right off!  We have no idea why or how to stop him.

But then Lucille noticed the bird in her hand had both feet.  It was Fizzy's mate Ike, Mike's brother.  Ike had been with Fizzy for exactly five years, ever since he was two months old.  He hadn't seemed sick at all.

Fizzy and Ike liked to live in a plastic canvas nesting house on an upper shelf of the passthrough window that Lucille has screened off to keep the birds out of the kitchen.  After Ike died, Fizzy refused to go into it or any other nesting house.  She slept on the yarn rope along the ceiling.

Lucille got a total shock the day after Ike died.  She was cleaning cages and the drawer wouldn't pull out of a cage.  Something was in the way.  It was Karen, dead on the floor despite being one of the youngest birds in Lucille's flock.  She most definitely didn't seem sick at all.

These sudden deaths with no explanation are quite unsettling.  Lucille was almost afraid to go into the birdroom the next day, but it's been weeks now and everyone's fine.

Al has been alone ever since his mate Pearl died.  He saw Fizzy free and thought he'd mate up with her.  Tough luck, Al.  Fizzy said no.  Karen's former mate Joe was more her style--never mind that he was nine months old to her five plus years. 

She began flirting with Joe, playing with him on the upper shelf of the passthrough.  Lucille had hung a lace valance across the top shelf and there were two tiny spaces where the valance curved upward just enough to let a couple birds sneak in and play on the shelf.

He would go in with a piece of yarn in his mouth like he would build her a nest.  She encouraged and admired him by flying up from the middle shelf to hover outside the valance where she could see him, then fly back down.  Up and down, up and down.  Then she followed him inside and they chatted about what a nice place that would be to live.

Lucille had to put a nesting house back up there for them to play in.  Instead of sleeping there, they moved into a tiny wooden house on the wall right next door.  Fizzy's the oldest bird of all our birds, the very first one Lucille bought.  She's acting like a teenager with her young fellow.  It makes us smile.

Yummy Finch Feather

What is it about zebra finches when they lose a wing feather? Randy's tan mate Lynn is young, about five months or so old, but even she did it the other day.

One of her wing feathers fell out and she picked it up off the floor like she'd found a prize. All excited, she maneuvered it around in her beak until she had it by the bottom end, then she chomped on it like she was sucking juice out of it or something. I don't know what the purpose of this is, but I've seen finches do it so often it no longer surprises me.

Lynn added her own little twist. When I thought she was done and would either drop the feather or put it into a nesting house, she maneuvered it around in her beak again. This time she slipped it through her beak from one end to the other. It looked like the roller of a typewriter in the hands of a speedy typist. I half expected a "ding" when she reached the end.

I had to admire the tongue action. It was like someone eating corn on the cob in a race at a county fair, but with no hands.

Was she in search of more flavor? Or is this snatching up a feather, parading it around and chomping on it how finches say goodbye to a lost wing feather? Like a person might give an old favorite worn-out pair of jeans a sad, loving goodbye before trashing them? I'm just asking.

Bad Boy Finch

Clay came home again. He wore out his welcome in 24 hours!

The first thing Lucille noticed upon his arrival was how much more noise there was in the bird room. She thought she could handle that, but his relentless pursuit of Little Girl led to her squealing once the next day. We don't know if he hurt her or he worked her last nerve, but that was no good.

While pursuing Little Girl, he managed to tell everyone he was boss of the world and chased them away from all "his" cages. This kept the entire flock unsettled.

The final kicker came when the quiet society finches ventured from their little wooden house on the wall. They wanted to eat, drink, bathe. Clay wouldn't let them! He chased them away from the bath dish and out of every cage they entered in search of food. Lucille shut him up in a cage by himself, beyond fed up with him.

Meanwhile, I noticed how quiet my house was without him. I hadn't realized how much of a Mr. Mouth he was until he was gone. I brought him back and he settled right down again. The next day he slept a lot--likely wore himself out being such a royal pain in the tush.

Lucille's flock settled back down to their usual playful doings the minute Clay was out of there. It's always interesting to us to see how a bird changes behavior according to which home he lives in, who his companions are, and whether he flies free or is caged. Or even which room they live in. Finches are little birds with some big opinions. We sometimes wonder who's boss, them or us. Ha! Who am I kidding? Finches rule.