ferrousland.com - animal news
dogs, chooks, frogs .. you know, animal stuff.
only the fifteen most recent entries in this category are shown below. to see other entries in this category use the navigation to the right.
February 02, 2009
seven tiny finches - 07:33 AM
last monday, bruce helped me finally put the birds' cage outside by putting in a large hook under a protected area. since they've been out there, they seem to be attracting birds (although it could be just a conincidence & it's the time of year when the birds might come about, anyway.)
just now there were seven tiny little finches out there, eating the seeds from the grass growing through the pavers. i tried to get a picture of them through the glass doors, but they spotted me & flew off. they were such cute little things.
January 30, 2009
how to get rid of my pet fruit flies? - 01:13 PM
ihad a 'pet' mouse or two for a little while. they went away, thankfully.
now i have these pet fruit flies that will not go away. i've been trying keep the stuff that they like out of their way, but then i have a fruit bowl. is it only rotting fruit & veg that they like, or will they keep hanging around the fresh stuff, too?
is there a way to get rid of them or will they eventually disappear on their own now that they have nothing to eat or sit on or whatever it is that they do with rotten fruit & veg? i won't use any type of chemical spray, so no need to suggest something like that. 
December 23, 2008
food bath - 08:51 AM
why do the birds have to take a bath in their seed bowl? geez they make a lot of mess for such small creatures!
October 30, 2008
one lost egg - 07:53 AM
bummer. there's an egg lost already.
i found it on the floor of the cage this morning. i've put it back in the nest, but it's already cold & neither hansel or gretel seem interested in it at all.
the annoying thing is that i hadn't yet set up local save (saving a pic to my hard drive each minute, instead of just uploading one image at a time to ferrousland which is replaced each time by the next image) so i don't know what happened. she may have laid it in the nest & knew it wasn't viable or something & threw it out. or maybe she laid it on the floor instead. or maybe she laid it on the perch & it hit the cage floor. i just don't know.
the egg isn't broken, but it is cold, so i can't imagine that anything's going to come of it.
October 29, 2008
bird cam is live! - 05:24 PM
it's been a while since i've had a live cam! must be more than five years.
this time it's not pointing at me, but at the birds. i've got it directed at their nest so that i can see if they lay eggs & when the eggs hatch.
originally i was just going to save the pics for smiley & myself but then a friend said, 'why not?' at the prospect of uploading it to ferrousland so that others can also see. good idea, that was. 
i've not got anything fancy for it, though, not even a menu item pointing to it, so if you want to see the nest, go here:
http://www.ferrousland.com/images/birdcam.jpg
maybe i'll add a link at the top of the front page sometime later, so you don't need to find this entry every time.
i've set it to upload once every minute. i can't guarantee that the picture will actually upload every time since my connection is so bad lately. if you want to see it update, you'll have to hit refresh on your browser window to see the new pic. as there's a new pic only every one minute, there's no need to refresh it constantly, so please do it not more often than once every minute.
there aren't any eggs in the nest at this point, so there's really not much to see. their perch is right along the line of sight of the cam, so the birds might jump in front of the cam occasionally.
gretel actually seems a bit unsure about the nest now that i moved the cage to allow the cam to reach it, so i'm hoping they still like the nest & haven't abanonded it. time will tell.
enjoy bird cam!
October 24, 2008
nest going well - 06:59 AM
i wondered for a little while if the finches didn't have it in them to be able to build a nest because, frankly, their initial efforts were a bit sad.
both hansel & gretel were trying to get on with the job, but hansel was being a big boofhead, charging in beside gretel, pushing her aside & just kind of throwing pieces of grass & yarn into the nest. she'd then grab them & throw them out again.
it seems they finally came to some sort of agreement, though, because the next is actually taking shape quite nicely now.
i helped them a bit, in the end. i put their nesting box back after they were trying in vain to build a nest over thin air in the corner, but they seemed to have their hearts set on that spot & just ignored the box, so i used some of the yarn smiley & i had cut up for them & threaded it through the bars across the corner to make a kind of 'web' base for the nest. they took it from there as soon as i'd finished & started piling up the nesting materials. well, hansel was piling them up; gretel was placing pieces carefully & threading the bits through other bits.
later in the day, after we'd been out & come back again, they had what actually looked like the basics of a nest, complete with kind of round shape. periodically, i've been collecting the bits of grass & paper from the outside of the cage, the bits that have fallen through as they've tried to place them, & put it back into the cage so they can keep building. smiley & i have collected more skinny weedy grass stuff for them, too.
last night they were both in there cuddled up together. it was really cute.
this morning, while i was still in bed, it seems they've been building up the sides of the nest & taking it higher so it goes above them a bit, too. i guess i'll pick some more grass for them today if they run out again.
it'll be cool to see how they go with the eggs. when hansel & gretel first arrived, gretel laid an egg in the first few days we had here, which ended up cracked on top of the nesting box. let's hope they have more luck this time.
it's been so interesting being able to watch them make the nest. i can't wait to see how the egg laying/sitting process goes. as much as they kind of smell & make such a mess, i now appreciate that they're inside & i've loved being able to watch this this latest thing happen.
October 21, 2008
the finches are nesting - 08:52 AM
the finches are desperately trying to build a nest.
initially, they were tearing up the newspaper from the bottom of the cage. that didn't seem to be working very well, because most of the paper was ending up outside the cage. so smiley cut up some paper into strips for them, but again, it was ending up outside the cage everytime they tried to stick it into the top corner of the cage.
last night we cut up some lengths of yarn for them, but they're not having much luck with that, either. just now i put in some skinny weedy type grass from the yard to see if they have better luck with that. it's stiffer & not as wiggly as the yarn, so maybe that'll work better for them.
they're getting really agro at the quails, too. they've been chasing them away & making loud noises at them.
i put their nesting box back in the cage last night, along with the wool, but they don't seem interested in using it. i guess time will tell to see if they want to use that or the (what seems to me) rather precarious corner of the cage.
August 06, 2008
nansel update - 09:53 AM
nansel (who sprained his foot a few weeks ago) seems to be all better now. after about a week, he started to place his foot down on the floor gingerly as he was walking around the cage & now you wouldn't even know he'd hurt himself at all.
i'm very pleased he's all better.
July 31, 2008
projectile poos - 11:07 AM
not only do they manage to get their seeds so far away from the cage (which is sitting on the floor), but they even manage to get some poos that far away from the cage, too!
that's both impressive & disgusting. lol! 
messy birds - 10:19 AM
i got a new dustbuster the other day, after the one i'd had for years wasn't charging very well anymore. after it was left off the charger for seven weeks or so while i was house minding, it lost even more of its charge & hardly had enough power to pick up dust, let alone anything slightly substantial.
using a dustbuster is almost a necessity when you have messy birds in the house that seem to be able to kick/flick seeds up to about a foot away from their cage. i've been using it at least once a day & sometimes up to three times a day just for their mess.
i had no idea that birds could be so messy!
July 17, 2008
cause of the sprain - 10:56 AM
i didn't mention the cause of nansel's (the quail previously known as grennel) sprain. i think smiley might have done it unintentionally.
he likes to play with the quails & even though he's usually very good about being gentle with them, i think he might have accidentally done it when he was holding one quail & trying to catch the other. he might have either caught him a bit roughly, or maybe squeezed him a bit hard & squashed his foot while he was trying to catch the other one.
we've had a talk about how he has to be extra, extra careful now. he let one of the quails under the fridge again on the very day his week-long ban was lifted (from letting them go under the fridge!), so his ban was reinstated, this time for two weeks. so it's good timing for nansel to have a rest.
change of names .. again! - 10:47 AM
i've just confirmed with melanie (who has heaps of quails) that the lighter-coloured quail is a boy. i've seen him stand up tall & make a very distinctive call. melanie said that is a male behaviour.
so i told smiley & he insists that the dark one will now be called grennel & the light one will now be called nansel. *rolls eyes* i can't keep up with these name changes. lol!
just a sprain & bruising - 10:26 AM
so it seems grennel is okay. the vet said there doesn't seem to be any break, that it's just a sprain. now that grennel's back in the cage & i've observed her more closely, i can see that she is putting her right foot on the ground, just not walking on it.
while the vet was looking, i could see the swelling & the bruising. poor little grennel. at least she's not going to have to have an amputation & will just have to rest her leg until it's better.
July 11, 2008
highly strung quails - 07:56 AM
i can't warm to the quails like i did pretty much immediately to the finches. they're such highly strung & nervous creatures.
all they seem to do is pace back & forth as though they're freaked out by something terribly scary in the cage. when they do sit still, they're hiding in the corner together as though there's some horrible monster in the opposite corner.
they're strange little birds. i wish they'd just relax & chill out.
July 07, 2008
escapee - 03:00 PM
hansel (the finch) escaped earlier when i had the floor of the cage out to clean it. i figured they'd not try to escape from the small gap down there, even if they did fit under it (which i incorrectly assumed they didn't).
he was only out for about five minutes, if that, but as soon as gretel noticed he was gone, she was fretting & calling out for him. i didn't realise that they were that attached to each other. it's sweet.
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