Anyone have finches?
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About 6 months ago, maybe less, our parakeet died. He was mainly my dad's bird, although he was originally supposed to be mine, but he and my dad bonded like besties, lol. We all miss having a bird in the house though and we're thinking we might like to get finches. This whole thought started when my parents visited me at my new work at an assisted living place where we have a decent-sized aviary filled with different finches. My dad loved them and I love any animals so we're thinking maybe we could get a few finches of our own. I was wondering what kind of special care they require if any though. Is there a certain kind of cage that's better for them? Also, I'm wondering where pet store finches come from, if they're taken from the wild. Because that would not be okay with me. I'd like to know if there's a way I can find out if they're bred here or wild-caught. Also, are there certain kinds of finches you would advise against? Or certain kinds you would say to get? Anything else I should know? I will, of course, do some research online, but I thought I'd ask here too.
Pet store finches are bred, as are any other pet parrot breeds currently as far as I know.
Legally, at least in the US, birds are no longer allowed to be caught wild and have been bred in captivity since the late 80s or so.
If you're not in the US, then I don't know, but pet birds haven't been allowed to be wild caught in the US for years.
I love finches! They have the cutest lil "peeps" and are fun to watch. Some really pretty (but harder to find ones) are owl finches. They look kinda like miniature barn owls. :D
Finches love company so definitely at least get a pair. If you get a male and female and they start breeding, keep an eye on em because they will breed like rabbits. We eventually had to separate males and females because we were afraid one of the females was going to die from exhaustion she was pumping out eggs so fast. By separate, I mean we moved em to a bigger cage and put a separator in the middle. They're really social creatures so make sure they can still talk to each other.
I have two parakeets, my first avian friends.
I don't know much about finches, but when picking out a cage you need to pay attention to the bar spacing, it needs to be pretty small. Also as for a cage shape, when I was researching the best option is a cage that is wider then it is tall. Look up "flight cage". If you get a tall cage they will just sit up on the highest part, and wide cage allows them to move around more. And just a plain rectangular shape is best.
I would look into info about keeping a number finches together and gender factors. I messed up by getting two female parakeets who I don't/can't cage together. (I still love my girl!) And I have been told to always keep parakeets in even numbers, and more males than females if it's an aviary setting. Again I am not sure about how finches work, but look into it.
if you are buying finches I think most finches are usually sold in pairs or at least all the pet store ones I've seen so far only sell in pairs anyway. Places like petco, pet smart may sell I'm singles but I'd advise getting more than one too because finches like company.
As for flight cage, when i first bought my parakeets I got a finch flight cage from petco that was about 18x30 or so and it was amazing for them. It's marketed in petco as being a finch flight cage and it's pretty spacious for them. Bar spacing wise, I think the highest you can get for small birds is about 1/2 inch between bars otherwise there's a possibility they'll escape or may even get stuck.
Also, it looks like I was wrong. The more expensive ones are wild caught, so there are some that are still wild caught. The white ones are bred since that's only a bred mutation, and I think most of the cheaper ones are probably bred as well.