How to feed baby finches

The natural habitat of finches is forests and artificial plantations (squares, parks, forest belts, gardens). This songbird is distributed throughout the European part of Russia, belongs to migratory birds.

The diet of the chaffinch differs according to the seasons. In early spring, the diet of birds consists of insect larvae and overwintered weed seeds, as well as young leaves and shoots. The finch often descends to the forest floor, to paths and edges in search of food. In summer, the male and female take care not only of their own food, but also of feeding the hatched chicks. For these purposes, protein foods begin to predominate in the diet: caterpillars, beetle larvae, bugs, hymenoptera, flies. During the nestling period, finches play an important role in protecting forests from insect pests. In autumn, the finch switches to plant food - seeds of weeds and cultivated plants. At the same time, preference is given to seeds with a high content of oils: cruciferous crops, hemp, flax, sunflower, nettle, poultry, etc.

When keeping finches in a cage, it is recommended to feed mainly grain. At the same time, it is desirable that the species composition of grain feed be diverse. Hemp and sunflower seeds must be included in the diet, but these components should not predominate, since finches with such feeding can have eye diseases and obesity. For flooded singing, insect food is added to the diet (meal worm, special mixtures). The presence of animal feed is also necessary when feeding chicks. nine0007

Despite the relatively modest food requirements, the diet of finches should be systematized and varied as much as possible. Finches, even when kept for a long time, will never become tame, so their cells are always covered with cloth, including when feeding. If it is possible to accustom the bird to the environment in daylight, then you should not rely on hand-feeding. At the slightest movement towards the cage, the finches lose their self-control and beat against the bars in a panic.

Under natural conditions, finches are very unpretentious and hardy birds, but they are not suitable for indoor keeping. Therefore, novice amateurs are not recommended to start them. nine0007

But there are people who can safely be called specialists, and they willingly keep these birds as excellent singers. In some cases, finches never get used to captivity, remaining wild for the rest of their lives. This is especially pronounced during the cleaning of the cage, when the bird is beating hard. But there are also individuals who eventually settle down and even become attached to their master.

In order to listen to the chaffinch's song more often, you should keep it alone. In order for him to better adapt to captivity, at first he must be constantly kept not in a cage, but in an aviary. The bird demonstrates its vocal talent all year round, with the exception of the molting period. The singing of finches is appreciated by many, even foreign lovers, who organize special competitions, during which up to 20 types of chaffin tunes are distinguished. nine0007

Finches are very mobile, smart and perky birds, but they love to fight among themselves. In the natural environment, males often arrange fights, defending their territory or protecting a nest with chicks from annoying neighbors. As soon as the owner of the nest hears the song of another finch coming from the vicinity of his possessions, he immediately rushes into battle. But some individuals get along great with other peaceful species of granivorous birds.

The fastest birds adapt to new conditions in a large outdoor aviary. When keeping several finches at once, they will be less pugnacious under such conditions and will quickly get used to the owner. For the nesting period, when the songs of the male become especially frequent, it is better to put him in a separate cage. The enclosure should contain a variety of perches and twigs, and if possible, shrubs and Christmas trees are planted in it. Both the aviary and the cage should be provided with a bath. For breeding, birds will need nesting material: blades of grass, thin twigs, moss, chopped woolen threads, etc.

The beak of the male during the mating season acquires a gray-blue tint. The female is in charge of building the nest. She lays 4-7 multi-colored eggs. Incubation lasts 11-13 days. The chicks hatch in 2 weeks.

In a pine grove, on a blue birch edge, in the depths of a dark coniferous spruce forest and on a thin forest overgrown with a thin forest, everywhere from April to August a ringing song-peal is heard, sometimes so iridescent and fading, sometimes absurdly loud and harsh.

Anyone who has been in the forest and has any interest in birds has seen the Chaffinch. nine0007

You are walking along a muddy spring road in a mixed forest. It's still early, gray snow, dotted with needles and twigs, lies in islands among melted lingonberries and burnt stumps. Silence. Only a timid slander of streams oozing along the road. Suddenly there was a ringing kick, and an elegant white-motley bird took off from the road. She sat down on a long pine bough and walked sideways along it. "Pink-pin-fin!"

She lets her closer. Wide white mirrors on the wings are clearly visible. The head of the bird is blue and the beak is blue, the breast is reddish, the upper tail is green. This is the beautiful forest finch. nine0007

The earliest date of arrival of finches to the Urals is the end of March, the latest is the twentieth of April. The finch always comes somehow suddenly. There was none yesterday. And today in the morning everywhere in the forest kicking, the roll call of flying flocks. Only elegant males fly.

Greyish females will appear a whole week later. In the meantime, the males take a fancy to nesting sites and begin to sing in a day or two. Spring in the Urals can be of any kind - sometimes unprecedentedly warm, friendly, green, sometimes long and cold. Clear hot days are suddenly replaced by cloudy gloom, drizzling rain, pouring grits. And the finches sing as if nothing had happened in the bare cold forest, heralding spring. Their singing is very different and different in different areas. Basically, it consists of a brisk long roll: “fuu-fuu-fuu, la-la-la-vic”. As a rarity, there are finches singing in two tones - major and minor. Then suddenly joyfully, loudly burst into the whole forest. Even shudder, stop. Oh, what is he doing, swindler! And it will already subside and suddenly ring out with a gentle stream, merge the same thing. Soul out, how good. Sometimes the finch does not sing, but makes a pleasant sad cry like: “rich, rich, rich, rummit.” Apparently, for this cry, the people called the bird a finch. Near the nest, the finch can chirp like a sparrow, in flight it emits a jerky “tek-tek ... ping”. nine0007

Catching a good chaffinch “by the voice”, as the birders say, is a rather tricky task. The listened bird must first be fed. Choose a place where this finch sings more often, rake up the forest floor and bait, sparing no food, and hemp, and seeds, and flour worms. Go back in a day or two and check. The finch will definitely find complementary foods, start flying on it and feed for a long time.

Sometimes you approach a place quietly, and he will fly off, hesitating: “I was here!” Then you can put up a net, mask it and a rope, better hide yourself and wait. Sometimes you wait half a day in vain, sometimes the next morning. But what a joy when he flies up, he always shouts before going down, and then dives down on a branch, sits above the very current, pulls up his tuft. "Pink, pink, pfin!" And to the current. Here even an experienced catcher is shaking. You can hardly wait until he comes closer to the network to cover for sure. And ... Here he jumps under the net. What a beautiful, bright, handsome forest fellow! Carefully seat him in a kuteika, and even better in a bag of rare fabric. Gather your gear and go home happy. nine0007

Catching a chaffinch with a lure is not always successful. A cautious forest songbird will never go straight to the current if he sees a cage. In such cases, the hiding place must be masked or placed away from the current. Chaffinches are caught in the spring both on the female and, like repolov, on nesting sites, but such fishing borders on poaching, and I have neither space nor desire to describe it.

Keeping finches in a cage is easy . They require a lean diet of a varied grain mix. In no case should you keep a bird on seeds or hemp. nine0007

The chaffinch eats them willingly and very soon (sometimes after a week) goes blind and dies. Blindness begins with the loss of feathers around the eyes. At first they fluff up, then the eyelids begin to get wet. The bird constantly scratches its head on the perch and thus worsens the condition of the eyes. Soon they turn into watery painful cracks and the finch dies. Eye disease is curable if caught at once. She progresses very quickly. It is necessary to abruptly change the food, removing all hemp and seeds from it. Lubricate the eyelids with a weak solution of potassium permanganate, give more greens, put currant jam in the drink. nine0007

If the cage with the finch hangs in the shade, it is transferred to a bright place, preferably in fresh air. The success of treatment is guaranteed if the disease has not gone too far.

In addition to the grain mixture, the chaffinch is given grated carrots, 1–2 flour worms, boiled potatoes in a small piece. He also likes white bread soaked in water or milk. In the summer, ant eggs and more greenery of the mosquito are added. The chaffinch's cage is ordinary, without a soft top. It should be borne in mind that this bird is wild, it does not get used soon - in a year and a half. nine0007

Cage singing sometimes begins in January and continues until July. Some good finches also sing in autumn, in September-October.

Chaffinch is a migratory bird. It nests twice during the summer and flies off in September, gathering in large flocks. Individual finches are delayed with departure until early November.

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Finch is a well-known small bird. She is very beautiful and sings melodic songs. Therefore, many people are thinking about the question of whether a finch can live at home. In this article, we will consider in detail the intricacies of the life of this bird in captivity, we will analyze what it should eat, what conditions must be created for it.

Chaffinch is a songbird that belongs to the finches family. She is very bright and elegant, she does not tolerate cold at all, which is why she got such an interesting name. nine0007

Length	From 14 to 18 centimeters.
Wingspan	From 24 to 29 centimeters.
Weight	16 to 30 grams.
Plumage color	Plumage includes brown, white, grey, blue and green. In autumn and winter, the color becomes dull, and in spring and summer, with the onset of the mating season, the birds become bright again. Birds are distinguished by a strong beak, a tail of sufficient length and powerful wings. Females are different from males, they are not so bright and beautiful. nine0095
Life expectancy	In the wild, the bird lives from one to three years. When kept at home, a finch can live up to ten years.
Songbirds	The chaffinch starts singing its songs approximately from spring to mid-summer, in the mating season. In autumn, the bird sings much quieter and less frequently. If the chaffinch lives at home, then its singing can be heard from January.

The usual type of finches flies quickly, moves on the ground by short jumps, he does not really like to walk.

The songs of this bird are notable for their loud sound, ringing trills, a bit reminiscent of nightingale ones. The chant lasts up to three seconds, then there is a pause, after which the singing resumes. Young birds sing very simply, while adults give out virtuoso melodies. A finch's repertoire can include up to ten melodies, which he loves to perform the most.

Interesting fact! Finches are able to predict rainy weather - before the rain they sing a special trill. nine0007

Where does such an unusual name come from?

To understand where this bird's name came from, you need to remember the saying that larks begin to sing when it gets warm, and finches start singing when frost sets in. The finch's trills end before winter in a rather peculiar way, as if the bird's throat had frozen sharply from frost and it could no longer continue singing.

In general, it is believed that the name of the bird came from the Russian word "chill", which means - to freeze. nine0007

As mentioned above, females are not as bright as males. The females of the chaffinch have brownish-gray feathers, occasionally white wedges can be found. The abdomen of the female is light, and the back, on the contrary, is dark. The beak of the female has a brownish-yellow tint.

As for the males, their plumage has many shades of green and blue. These birds have dark wings with white stripes, their back is brown, and their abdomen is beige. With the beginning of the mating season, in spring, the bird's beak becomes bluish, only its tip remains dark. By winter, the beak of the male finch looks slightly frozen - it acquires a shade of pinkish-brown. nine0007 A pair of finches

In total, eighteen species of finches are known in nature. On the territory of the Russian Federation and the CIS you can meet:

• European chaffinch - the traditional variety described above;
• Caucasian chaffinch - lives in the Crimea and the Caucasus, sings very beautifully;
• Hyrcanian chaffinch - lives mainly in Northern Iran, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, has a reddish belly and a dark brown back; nine0173
• Kopetdag chaffinch - distributed near the Turkmen reserve of the same name, has extensive white areas of feathers on the wings and tail.

On the territory of our country, you will most likely meet only the European variety of the chaffinch.

The chaffinch resembles a sparrow in many ways, it easily finds a common language with people, often neighbors them. The diet of this bird is unpretentious, for the winter (subject to a warm climate), the bird builds a strong nest for itself, which it diligently disguises. nine0007

Chaffinches can often be found at the stadium or in the city park. If the bird is worried, feels the approaching danger, it makes loud, sharp sounds that are repeated over a wide range of frequencies. The loud sound of such a chirp should make the enemy stop chasing the bird.

Sometimes finches do not want to show their excitement to everyone, then they squeak loudly, betraying anxiety. Such sounds resemble a thin, drawn-out whistle, it starts almost silently and ends with the gradual disappearance of the volume to zero. A bird can give similar signals to its fellow tribesmen in order to warn them of impending danger, but not to appear in front of a predator, not to give out its location. nine0007 Ermines are one of the main enemies of finches

Chaffinch is an unpretentious and hardy bird. Its main enemies are small predatory animals that love to destroy bird nests. Finches can be hunted by owls, woodpeckers, magpies, crows and jays.

In addition, the main enemies of finches are cats, ermines, squirrels and martens.

Finches prefer to live in deciduous, coniferous or mixed forests. They do not like only the taiga, because it is quite difficult to get food on the ground there. It is not uncommon for a finch living in a summer cottage or garden plot. nine0007

The basis of the diet of this bird is insects, in addition, the bird does not refuse weeds, fruits, berries.

Finches actively hunt insects in spring, they feed on them throughout the summer, until the end of August. They really like small bugs, weevils. Finches rid tree plantations of these pests, which bring great benefits to the environment.

Finches prefer to fly to warmer climes for the winter. Some varieties of these birds that live in an acceptable climate may stay over the winter. Most of the birds, with the onset of the first frosts, approximately at the beginning of October, set off on a long journey. They can fly to the central part of Europe, to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Some birds winter in the Caucasus, birds from Siberia prefer to winter in Central Asia, Kazakhstan.

The flight to wintering takes place with the participation of the whole flock, which can include up to a thousand individuals. Birds move south at a speed of more than fifty kilometers per hour. From wintering, finches return from February to April. First, males return to their place of residence, females catch up with them after about a week. nine0007 Flock of finches

Finches at home – is it possible? These birds coexist well with humans, take root well in apartments and houses. But, it is impossible to say with certainty that the bird will definitely become tame. To achieve this, you will have to create a lot of conditions for the finch, have experience in keeping birds and be patient.

If the bird was caught as an adult, certain difficulties may arise with it. You will have to keep the finch in a cage covered with a cloth so as not to frighten him. Such birds, when a person appears, begin to express strong anxiety, beat against the bars of the cage. nine0007

If the bird was caught in the wild on its own, because of which it was injured, then it will not work to wait for melodic singing from the pet.

Keeping a finch at home involves preparing a suitable place for him to live. A cage for a finch will need not be too voluminous, with a height of about sixty centimeters, a width of fifty centimeters and a width of forty centimeters. The upper part of the cage should be made of cloth, and it is better to cover the cage itself with a cloth so that the bird is more comfortable inside. So, you will create for her an island of safety in which she will feel comfortable. nine0007

Place a bowl of water and a feeder in the bird cage. It does not hurt to fix perches inside the cage on which the bird can sit and a house where it can hide.

At the bottom of the cage, sand can be poured, which must first be sieved and calcined to get rid of parasites in it.

Puts the cage with the bird in a place that is well lit, regularly ventilated. But, the presence of drafts is not acceptable. You need to clean the inside of the cage on a regular basis. General cleaning should be carried out weekly with mandatory disinfection of all surfaces and subsequent airing of the cage in the fresh air. nine0007

As we noted above, sifted sand should be poured inside the cage, it will act as bedding.

In order for the birds to make their own nest, you need to prepare materials at hand for them. It can be tree branches, lichen, moss, pieces of tree bark, cobwebs, wool, hair.

How to feed a finch at home? This bird is not particularly picky either in living conditions or in the diet. nine0007 Poppy seeds

What can be fed to a chaffinch:

• millet - you can combine several species, check what the bird will like and choose the optimal composition;
• some oil to reduce the pet's susceptibility to cold;
• sunflower seeds, rapeseed, oat and poppy seeds - will increase the energy of birds, which is especially important during the mating season;
• germinated seeds - just do not mix them with dry ones, this will quickly spoil both types; nine0173
• grated carrots, boiled potatoes;
• white bread soaked in milk or water;
• ant eggs;
• woodweed greens.

Chaffinch food should not remain in the feeder for a long time, it must be changed to a new one in a timely manner.

In order for the birds to sing more actively, it is necessary to increase the number of insects in the diet. It can be flour worms, special mixtures. Insects are required when the birds have hatched and begin to accustom the chicks to adult food. nine0007 Boiled potatoes for feeding finches

Do not constantly feed the bird with sunflower and hemp seeds. These products should be given in minimal quantities, only as part of a mixture with other grains. Otherwise, the bird may get sick, blind and die. If you notice signs of anxiety in a pet, you see that he constantly scratches his head on the bars of the cage, and his eyes begin to water, you need to drastically remove these foods from the diet. After that, it is important to wipe the finch's eyes with a weak solution of potassium permanganate, increase the amount of greens in the daily diet, add a little currant jam to the drinker. nine0007

In order for the bird to bathe whenever it wants, to keep its plumage clean, it is necessary to put a container of water in the cage. Its contents should be changed regularly to avoid the multiplication of pathogens inside.

Finches can breed if kept at home, in a cage, under the right conditions for them.

What you need:

• a small box with a nest;
• improvised nest materials - moss, lichen, twigs, tree bark, wool;
• bring the male and female into one cage.

How will birds breed? First, the birds will begin to build a nest, it will take them about a week. After mating, the female will lay eggs in the nest, there can be from four to seven. Finch eggs are multi-colored, the female will incubate them for 11-13 days. nine0007

It should be noted that all the time while the female is incubating the eggs, the male sings melodic songs. Newborn chicks squeak amusingly, whistle, their skin is covered with a rare fluff, it is wrinkled and red.

The chicks begin to fly out of the nest on their own about 14 days after hatching from the egg. To feed them, you need to offer the birds small larvae and other insects. Food rich in protein will speed up the growth of finch chicks.

Males guard the nest with the female and chicks very seriously. When danger appears, they immediately stand up to protect their family. nine0007

Interesting fact! The male chaffinch may participate in feeding foreign chicks.

After the first spring/summer egg laying, finches may lay another clutch. This does not happen before the end of summer. This time the female lays no more than three or four eggs. It should be noted that in order to incubate new offspring, the male builds a new nest for the female.

It is not easy to tame a finch, if a pet was born in a cage, then it can get used to a person. If he was caught already as an adult, then it will be very difficult to tame him. Most likely, when a person appears, the bird will beat against the bars of the cage, trying to hide. nine0007 Tamed Chaffinch

In order for the bird to become accustomed to its owner, it must be kept in a cage upholstered with cloth for a long time, where the pet will feel relatively safe.

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