Male finch starts mating song and when female starts vibration of her tail he stops and very hesitant to jump on her one time he jumped on her backwards, its been going on now several weeks and still same. Is he inexperienced or what it really upsets me.
Hi Crystal,
It is important that your birds are old enough to breed. They need to be over a year old, 18months or older is better. Young birds are inexperienced and it can take a while for them to figure out what to do. If you want to breed birds, you need to be patient. There are likely to be many failures before you see any results. Even if they mate and lay eggs, the first clutch almost always fails for some reason – poor incubation, infertile eggs, parents don’t feed the chicks. Your birds need to be on a nutritionally balanced diet like pellets – a seed mix will not provide the nutrition they need. You should also offer dark leafy greens and finely chopped veggies. When you have the set up for breeding, you also should offer cooked eggs, with the shell washed, crushed and cooked with the eggs. There are also commercial egg foods you can buy. The female needs the extra protein and calcium to form eggs and remain healthy. If they ever succeed in raising chicks, you have to remove the nest as soon as the chicks leave it or the parents will breed again too soon. You should rest the pair for 6 months between clutches and only allow 2 clutches per year, which is one more than they would have in the wild. If you let your birds breed too often, it is bad for the female’s health and she can end up dying from laying eggs too often. Your birds only need a nest when they are breeding and laying eggs. They do not need a nest for sleeping.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
