Okay, my mom usually isn't completely irresponsible and usually "sort of" likes animals, but sometimes she stops thinking completely and really makes me want to beat myself senseless.

I seem to remember a few people on here saying they kept finches.

My mother found a "big" cage (it's probably 36" tall, but the base is only 18x12") at a thrift shop a while back. My grandmother has dementia and lives with my parents. She gets really bored so my parents thought it would be nice to get her some birds she could look at in her bedroom. Six months ago they brought home 4 zebra finches (2 males/2 females).

I really don't know much about finches. I live an hour+ away and only see them 1-2x/month. These birds are eating finch seed mix with some greens, millet sprays, and occasional hard-boiled egg, plus grit and oyster shells, in case it's important. Everything, I've read so far though tells me that space was probably the initial issue.

Well, after a short while it was obvious that one of the females was being picked on. It didn't seem to me like they were being fed quite enough, since they were eating absolutely everything she was giving them, so not knowing much else about finches pointed that out to my mom.

A while later that bird died. Then the second hen started going downhill. About that time my mom found two larger cages (about 30"x18") probably made for baby chicks and then went out and bought another female to replace the first one and for some reason another cock/hen pair. She put each pair in a separate cage. Everything seemed to be going really well until a bit before Christmas when another female (in one of the larger cages) died. She had been laying eggs so she may have been egg-bound, but when I asked my mom said she hadn't checked on them in at least 2 days, maybe 3!! Since I had been considering taking a pair of them off her hands and since the one male looked so lonely I bought another hen to put in with the lone cock until I could take them home in a few weeks. Well, apparently the new hen didn't make it through the new year. My sister said she didn't think they had been seen to in 2 days.

My mom is now fed up with the whole fiasco and only wants the birds in one cage because taking care of three cages is too much work. She insinuated that is why she's been neglecting them. Unfortunately, she only really wants them in the original, tall and narrow cage because it's the only "pretty" one. But now she has 5 birds instead of 4, and 3 males to 2 hens. When I last talked to her she insisted that she had seen finches in tighter quarters than that. Well, so have I, in Petsmart, and they always look sick.

Of course nothing is going to keep them alive if she isn't feeding them, but assuming they are otherwise well, cared for, how many finches can live in that size of cage? The cock/hen pair in there were surviving, but didn't seem to get along quite as well as the other two.

I have no qualms about the ugliness of the chick cages and will probably take one pair, but that leaves the singleton male. I personally, don't really have the space for two pairs, though maybe 3 birds if they could get along in the same cage.

How long can the lone male go by himself?

Assuming they have enough space, can 2 males be paired with one female? Or two males alone together?

Is there something else I may be missing here?

I'm not sure if there's much I can do about my mother, but I really want my grandmother to be able to keep a pair, she's gotten very attached to them. I'm going to try to enlist my sister's help to care for them. She's responsible, but unfortunately she's also really busy and will probably be leaving for college within a year. This whole situation makes me angry.

Hi, sorry to hear about so many problems with caring for your birds. I am in no way an expert, but had finches years ago, now I have an African gray, cocatiels and parakeets. So I will let you know what I know about finches and birds in general.

First of all anytime you introduce a new bird, the others may not except them at first, so you really have to watch, because sometimes the finches will protect their territory and fight the newcomer or won't let the newcomer near the food. Also anytime you bring a new one in it should be separated, as it might not be healthy and can and will pass something to the ones that you have. To introduce, it is best to keep the NC in a separate cage next to the est. ones, and let them get use to each other before trsnsferring with the others. Then watch carefully until you are sure all is well and the NC is eating.

The size of the cage should be large enough that they can fly, should not have sloping walls, pointed roofs or balcnies, because there is not room for them to fly and they can easily get hurt. When finches can not fly they lose their liveness.Also Brass cages are not good as the finches verdigris forms on the brass when it gets wet and the birds peck on it and can get poisoned.

Finches are social and should have at least one other bird, you can keep several together as long as you watch to make sure that there is not an aggressor in the group. (I always used a couple differant feeding bowls to make certain that all could get to the food when they want). Differant spieces of finches are more aggressive than others. Zebra finches are usually less demanding. Make certain they get plenty of sunlight and no drafts. Many birds die because of draft from fans, outside drafts.

Hope some of this is helpful, if you have any other questions, I will try to answer them. Good luck with them.

I own right now about 12 finches including a few rescued zebra "rats." my specialty however is lady gouldian finches. With zebras they tend to be a fairly tough finch so I am a little surprised you're having much trouble with them.

Minimum cage size for a finch is one to two solid airborne wing flaps between perches so bigger is always better. The cages I'm currently using are 2 x 2 x 3 feet. You always want horizontal length with flying cage birds because generally speaking that's the direction they're able to fly. Just because they have wings doesn't mean they fly straight up easily.

I am willing to bet 99% of your issue is sadly neglect. People assume with finches that just because there is food in the dish it means it's all great. Most of that food in that dish after the first day is nothing but hulls and sadly finches lack the know how to dig for their supper. Being so small means that they have to eat often and in small amounts. Odds are the issue was low blood sugar.

If you're wanting to avoid the baby issue with your finches (zebras breed like rats) I usually will give out a zebra finch with a society finch. Both are hardy finches roughly the same size and do fine in cages together.

At my house introducing a bird after quarantine involves a box, a dark room, and moving stuff around. I catch all the birds and put them in a travel box. Put that box in my dark bathroom for a couple hours. I move around all the perches and then let them go together. I've yet to have a problem with this strategy. That said, some finches like zebra and societies are bullies and will gang up on a finch especially if it's a 3 to one or four to two ratio male to female ratio. Worse comes to worse usually involves feather plucking... however a larger size of cage does help with this.

She needs to blow on the food dishes everyday because as others have pointed out they are most likely getting nothing but hulls. I think the stores should stop selling those tiny cages. Made me mad when people bought one for their finches or worse parakeet when I worked at PetSmart. It's like the situation with bettas. Just because they can live in a cup(8 oz) of water doesn't mean they should. Those finches need more space. I've seen a nice "pretty" flight cage at PetCo. All the cages PetSmart sells are built vertical and are useless to the birds.

Do those finches have enclosed nests? If they don't they're probably also stressed out due to not having anywhere to hide. Nests also make it easy to control reproduction. Either replace the eggs with dummies(better for the birds) or just throw them out. One nest per each pair with one extra to let them choose which one works out well. Are they getting hay? It's a great way to keep them busy throughout the day and they enjoy lining the nest cups with it. You can get a ball hay dispenser thing that keeps it off the cage floor and holds enough to last them 3-5 days. It's just plain old timothy or alfalfa hay you can get at the pet store. Dried berries or mealworms, which we would bury in the hay, were always a treasured treat with the finches at PetSmart.

This is the nice one I saw at PetCo. http://www.petco.com/product/100285/Prevue-Finch-Flight-Cage.aspx

That prevue cage is nice. I actually use that exact one for a quarantine cage. You can pick up that same model for about $15 on ebay or amazon in just about any color as well. It's a good home for a max of two finches.

Thanks you guys,
That's pretty much what I suspected, initially the quarters were too tight and she hasn't been feeding them often enough. I'm pretty sure that's what killed the last two birds.

Yes, they did have enclosed nests, and the pairs in the larger cages were using them (and laying eggs), but apparently the one in the tall cage was mostly ignored. I think Mom might have taken them out after the last bird died to avoid babies. Do they really need them? My grandmother's room is pretty quiet and warm.

 Quote: melissa thom

I am willing to bet 99% of your issue is sadly neglect. People assume with finches that just because there is food in the dish it means it's all great. Most of that food in that dish after the first day is nothing but hulls and sadly finches lack the know how to dig for their supper. Being so small means that they have to eat often and in small amounts. Odds are the issue was low blood sugar.

That's really good to know. I didn't know they won't dig for their seeds. Maybe that was my problem: I showed her how to blow the hulls out, so she assumed that there was still food in the cups (but actually blowing through the cup was too much work everyday ). I have two cockatiels (that she has looked after for short periods) and they will dig under the hulls for their food. If I fill the cups full enough I only change their seeds every other day and it gives them something to do (it also helps that they squawk at me when they're hungry). I guess in her mind they're the same thing.

 Quote: melissa thom

At my house introducing a bird after quarantine involves a box, a dark room, and moving stuff around. I catch all the birds and put them in a travel box. Put that box in my dark bathroom for a couple hours. I move around all the perches and then let them go together. I've yet to have a problem with this strategy.

I'll do that, THANK YOU.

If I could get her down to two birds at least her situation would be easier. Could I keep two males and one female in a decently long (30-36") cage?

As for the cage, I'll keep checking ebay and amazon. Maybe I could make something she would like. I made my tiels' cage and she really likes that, though I have a feeling she might just get very defensive and find any excuse not to use it. She did exactly the same thing to a canary we had growing up: took him out of a decently sized, modified rabbit cage and put him in one of those teeny things just because it was prettier. He was my only experience with passerines at all, and he was miserable after that.

She keeps going on about how "big" the pretty cage is. I wish I could make her remember the parakeets I had in high school. My dad and I built what we thought was a really big cage for them, but of course it was just really tall and of course they just sat in the top of it most of the time. I was actually surprised at how well these finches were using the vertical space compared to the parakeets.

These little guys are so cute and mesmerizing to watch. I wish I could have 20 of them and I can't bear to keep seeing them die.

Okay, deep breath.... I'm just venting now.

Oh, and can one zebra be kept alone long enough to quarantine a new pal?

I guess that's a dumb question. His pal has to be quarantined alone unless you bought a group .

yes... shouldn't be an issue to keep one... I just would make sure he doesn't get too stressed out.

It's definitely possible to build a good sized cage for pretty cheap-- I'm definitely no expert, but I had cockatiels and nandays (one pair of each) when I was in high school. My dad and I built oblong cages for them out of hardware cloth 30"h x 30"w x 5'l for each pair. We purchased all of the materials at a hardware store. Hung them over a wipe-able surface (or in my case a concrete area with a floor drain that I could hose down). Obviously this would be a bit large for finches though...

One thing that bothered me was that the bottoms were all wire...not very good for their feet. I think if I had to do it over I would try to use removeable pans. And I think the nest boxes/enclosed nests are pretty integral. Birds nest- I imagine it's kind of like a dog's crate.

Good luck, finches are cute little guys plus the sounds they make are so happy, lol.