the advantages – they are relatively cheap; they are supplied as flat packs and are easy to unfold and make into boxes; at the end of a breeding round they can be thrown away; you do not have to wash and disinfect them (as you do with wooden boxes); they come with breeding record cards printed on their sides and they do not take up a lot of storage space in the bird room for 6 months every year. The only disadvantage we have found is that the hole used to hang them up can wear. To counteract this, we fix them with screws that have large heads. If nails are used for hanging the cardboard nest- boxes they need to be set at an angle of 45 degrees so that the boxes slide down them and stay firmly in place.
Pack of cardboard nest boxes We will now list other zebra finch nest-
box types that we have seen. A fairly common one is the enclosed wicker basket with a small entrance hole. Although these go some way toward replicating wild-type nests and can look quite attractive when colony breeding in an aviary, they are no use at all for cage
16 BIRD SCENE
breeding as you cannot make inspections or get at the chicks to ring them. Among the more unusual nest-boxes we have seen are empty plastic margarine tubs. We once went to an aviary where these were being used to breed zebra finches, canaries and foreign finches all in the same flight. The whole set-up was crude – and, at first sight, unsuitable – but there were eggs and chicks everywhere. We have seen homemade cardboard nest-boxes constructed from egg food cartons. When Gerald visited Australia he found many bird rooms, and most of the equipment, was made out of metal. This is because termites eat anything made from wood. One breeder went one step further and used cans that had contained tinned fruit as nesting appliances for his zebra finches. They appeared to work well. Finally, and also in Australia, one breeder used blocks of foam rubber, 3in (7.5cm) thick and 6in (15cm) square, with a concave hollowed out in the top surface, placed inside conventional nest-boxes. No other nesting material whatsoever was made available to the birds. At the end of a breeding round, the foam was washed, disinfected and hung out to dry. Once again, it is easy to imagine conventionalists saying that such an arrangement is unsuitable for breeding zebra finches – but the breeder supplied his own answer. He was breeding zebra finches by the dozen.
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