Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]





Welcome to The Round Table. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Dylan's Pets
Topic Started: Oct 3 2013, 03:58 AM (13,980 Views)
Mathius Tyra
Member Avatar
Rat snake is love... Rat snake is life

Birds everywhere!

And yay for Steve and Kari! :D
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Kevin
Member Avatar
Quail Conqueror.

I should really get myself a flock of these birds. xD
Sadly, the mesh around my aviary is not suited for them, they would probably poke their heads trough and get stuck, which isn't something I would want to risk. Maybe I'll set up another aviary with smaller mesh, I don't know yet. I love how you made their room, is it specially made for them? :)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Imp
Member Avatar


D'awwwwww those birds are so cute :$

Sad to hear about all the bird drama, but I'm happy you have a nice family now :3
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ignacio
Member Avatar
Ex Corrupt Staff

So cute! A lot of this pictures are amazing. I specially love the shot of the canaries in the window.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Uolym
Member Avatar


You are so Lucky to have so many birds! :) I don't have enough place for that many at my place.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Sheather
Member Avatar
Thank you for the set, Azrael!

This is their own room. It was once a kitchen, and it still has a fridge in there, but besides that it's entirely for the birds. They all have their own cages, and every night every group knows to return home, and I close them in. The society finches all fly into their own and pile into a single little nest to sleep (13 of them in a 3 x 5 inch space!), the canaries go up into their own cage and sleep, and the Java sparrows go into their own cage, though they always wait until the very last minute and don't go unless I yell at them. Really, if I don't they try to sleep outside on the branches. I used to have to catch them to cage them every night and got annoyed and talked angrily to them, and they've learned that when I do that I'm about to try to catch them so to prevent that, they've learned to just go on their own. xD Come morning I clean up the room and put out fresh food and water and let them all out to fly. They give me SUCH sad faces now when I don't let them out right away, though, now that they know freedom. The societies just sit absolutely motionless and stare at me forlornly until I open the door, while the Javas chew on their cage bars and the canaries bounce off their door and back to the perch nonstop until I open it. Once I let them out though it's about an hour of absolute fun chaos as everyone is singing and hopping and eating and flying all over the place before they settle down a bit for the day, before another bout of frenzied activity before bedtime in the evening. I have branches and big homemade perch swings for them all over the room hung from the walls, curtain rods, windowsills and ceiling fan and clip pieces of lettuce, broccoli, apples, and other treats all around the room in different places every day to keep them stimulated. They have a big bowl to take baths in (1000 times a day it seems like) and all sorts of different dry food/seed mixes to eat, depending on the day. I don't think there are many finches kept in better conditions than my guys. :3

They just exhibit so much personality if you let them be animals and not ornaments. I mean, people always seem to say canaries are so antisocial and shouldn't have companions, but this is just because a male canary, with a mate, isn't so desperate for a friend that he sings his head off in search for one. I'd much rather have a happy little bird as a pet than a desperately lonely, deprived one who sings for my amusement in a tiny cage.

The canaries especially have such a dynamic going. It really reminds me of a Disney movie, with frumpy clumsy, mongrel Steve and beautiful and agile purebred Kari. Their personalities are so distinct! He is calm and very laid-back, whilst she is high-strung and like a little pistol. Steve, to be blunt, got beat up a lot by the Javas, whilst Kari got bit at one time and practically went kung-fu on them in a fit of screeching - and the Javas have not touched either canary since! She definitely wears the pants in their family, it seems. She's not at all aggressive, though, just able to take care of herself.

She's also extremely good at flying, all around the room in big swoops and laps. Steve is not. Steve grew up in a cage 10 x 12 inches in size. He never learned to fly. Though he has since built up enough muscle to do so, it seems his childhood conditions have resulted in his having no mental ability to comprehend free-flying. The only flight he does is a direct line from one perch to another landing place. Kari, meanwhile, just gets up and flies all around with no set destination in mind, which really seems to irk Steve, since he doesn't know how to follow. He tries and tries to join her and just cannot figure out how to turn and stay aloft in the air for more than a moment, leaving Kari to fly with the Javas, who also fly like she does, in swooping arcs without landing. This ability to fly just for flight's sake, rather than only back and forth to landing spots, must stem from being raised in aviaries - both they and Kari were. The societies too don't really fly except from spot to spot, and like Steve, they were raised in cages. I'm interested to see if the new chicks are going to be better pilots, being raised from the start in a wide open space.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mathius Tyra
Member Avatar
Rat snake is love... Rat snake is life

That's like a five-star estate for pet birds! :D I'm really jelly now!


And what about the female wild sparrow? Does she still visit Steve?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ignacio
Member Avatar
Ex Corrupt Staff

I'm a fan of your birds at this point and i can notice how good care you take of them.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Jules
Member Avatar
Mihi est imperare orbi universo

Seriously these are the most awesome birds ever xD
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Posted Image Drax
Member Avatar


This is quite impressive. You really know what your doing!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Sheather
Member Avatar
Thank you for the set, Azrael!

Thank you everyone!

The wild sparrow does still come around, and is entirely ignored now. It's rather sad, but the sparrow never cared for Steve quite as much as he did for her - I think she mostly just wants to come in and eat the finch's food.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Sheather
Member Avatar
Thank you for the set, Azrael!

Da Birdeh's Room


Posted Image

Posted Image

Finch Babehs

Eating 60% of the time on their own, flying capably, and having fully obtained their feathery coats (except for the youngest two who are still sparse in the neck), the finches are 4 - 4.5 weeks old now and could be considered adolescents, no longer fledges or babies. They look like birds, and they don't feel like babies to hold anymore, all floppy and heavy, they carry themselves high and are light on their feet and are pretty close to all grown up.

So far, most of them are quite tame considering their age, by now most finches would have become fearful and flighty. Their personalities are distinct, though, and despite getting equal amounts of handling, Sylvan, Rain and Simba are very tame, whereas Cirrus, Nimbus, and especially Waffles are no longer very comfortable with being handled and run from me when I try to pick them up, whereas the other three still enjoy human attention.

Sylvan, happy as a clam to fly over, pose for the picture, and get some cuddlez.

Posted Image

Simba, just as friendly though more nervous and high-strung.

Posted Image

Waffles, the snottiest little rebel in the group, whom did not want to be picked up, did not want his cheeks rubbed, did not want to come into the other room, and did not want a camera in his face, was very unhappy with this photo session and tried to fly away the whole time until I put the camera away, and THEN he was all cuddly sweet again. It took so many shots to get a good pic of him not trying to fly off! xD

Posted Image

Cirrus is fearful of being picked up but fairly content to sit on a hand and be pet after the fact.

Posted Image

Rain, pretty easygoing and not bothered at all by handling, though neither does she seek out my attention like Sylvan or Simba. It's hard now to see her ruby eyes (as a baby, you could see she had very red, unpigmented eyes, but they've gotten darker).

Posted Image

Nimbus. Like her brother, she doesn't particularly enjoy handling any longer, though she's much more calm and accepts it rather than rebels.

Posted Image

Canaries!

Kari, midway through her daily assault upon the leaves of my defenseless little palm tree. : (

Posted Image

Steve, drying off after bathing.

Posted Image

"Ooh that feels good!"

Posted Image

Engaging in photosynthesis.

Posted Image

Maximum cuteness overdrive.

Posted Image

Like any self-conscious male, however, all it takes is the slightest glance from an attractive partner to get him standing tall and sucking in his belly.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ignacio
Member Avatar
Ex Corrupt Staff

Steve is so funny xD Rain is really beautiful. Is good to see they are growing up just fine :)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Kevin
Member Avatar
Quail Conqueror.

That last picture though. xD

Do you by any chances have some ideas on bird enrichment, Dylan? Ofcourse I know some stuff but maybe some things you wouldn't think of immediatelly? Since I'm probably getting myself some budgies soon. :)
Edited by Kevin, Aug 19 2014, 07:54 AM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Sheather
Member Avatar
Thank you for the set, Azrael!

Flying space. Toys are fine, a variety of perch types, nests, and a diverse, interesting diet with many fresh foods help too, but nothing is quite so valued by a bird as space to fly and do as nature built them to do.

Meanwhile, while I sold four of the baby finches after all to very good homes, more birds came to me afterwards, this time almost all rescues. I've been given 3 African silverbill finches and 3 Lady Gouldian finches from a very well-intentioned but honestly awful owner who had no idea how to care for any of them. Two of the gouldians are disabled, and live in a specially set-up cage where they have ladders and platforms to get around, since once cannot fly (unhealed broken wing) and one cannot walk well or perch (he has one leg). They are both troopers though, and I'm happy to care for them, as since they are 'broken', it's likely nobody else ever would.

AND, and, today, while I was coming home from a bike ride, I was approached on the sidewalk by a very hungry, thirsty, tired little yellow and green budgie who had apparently flown from home (or been released) and was in need of some care. He was docile enough to let me bring him right in the house, set him up an enclosure, and give him some food and fresh water, which he really appreciated. What luck he happened to get lost and end up right in front of the 'Birdman's' House, out of all the other houses he could have gone to, he found mine. Almost as if he knew I could help him.

If nobody claims him, I will keep him, the little random sidewalk budgie who adopted me. He's pretty tame, but a tad fidgety, understandably due to the stress he probably went through today.

Will post pictures tomorrow.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Pets & Wildlife · Next Topic »
Add Reply