Society Finches, age for mating and, signs of....

[BirdCamUs]

Hi, we recently got 3 Society Finches at a local birdshow. We were hoping to get 3 males as we did not want to breed them. We have them together in one cage and they all seem to be getting along fine. The breeder could not identify their gender easily and said we'd know by whether or not they sing, or when they start mating. They have been in the same cage together for 9 days... if they were going to show mating behavior - would we have seen something by now? From reading other posts in the Finch section on this board, it seems like they are prolific when it comes to having kids (Fids). We just don't know how long it would take them before we could tell since it is difficult to say whether all three are singing or not. We have not provided them with any nesting materials per the advice of others on this board. It seems like two of them do sing for sure, but because we are new to this type of bird, we don't really know. We sent an email to the breeder asking these same questions with no response. Thanks for any info you can share...

CG

[BrookR1]

You'll just have to wait and see. Some finches mate right away and others take time. It depends on how old the finches are and whether or not they are in breeding condition. If you haven't seen them sing, that may be a good sign that you don't have a female in the group because my gouldians sing only when they are trying to attract a nearby female.