Lavender Waxbills
Determining Lavender's gender from calls, housing, feeding and breeding
Gender determinination by call, confirmed by DNA sexing
Whatever other challenges Lavender Waxbills throw at you, after using this site at least you will know that you have pairs
Determing gender of Lavender Waxbills is not hard. Experts say it's easy from their calls. They're right. What's the problem then?
Seems we are good at describing colour & smells to each other but poor at describing complex sounds in writing
A very good breeder of Lavender Waxbills describes the cock-call as a 'psee-psee'. Listen to the clips and see whether you agree
It certainly isn't how I would describe the call. Other Lavender Waxbill breeders use other descriptions
Listen to actual clips of the Waxbill's calls on following pages (thanks to Alice, Di and John for initial cock-call identification). Alice is happy with the more elusive hen call as well)
Each bird's gender has since been verified by DNA sexing - 100% right
How you then describe the cock Lavender call is immaterial. You will have heard it. Descriptions are then irrelevant
attractive
active - curious
friendly
easy to care for
gender determination (no more)
feather plucking
schizophrenic
difficult to breed (for me anyway)
A neat and challenging waxbill
Why has only 1 of 3 known breeding pairs parent reared once, under the same conditions as the others. And, why after that, did this pair lay but never even sit out the eggs properly?
2 - PluckingCan start quite suddenly between even a well bonded pair and can get very severe with the hen ending up virtually denuded and subject to chill. The advice I was given was to separate such pairs with wire mesh divider until feathers grow back
A colony of say 10, lives happily together then suddenly one pair decides to nest and all hell breaks loose. The results are serious unless the aggressive pair isn't isolated immediately
A very successful UK Lavender finch breeder, Richard Prosser determined gender by careful observation, who was bobbing to whom. Was it aggressive or friendly? He was obviously very good at this, (hard to argue against fertile eggs & 30+ chicks in 2006)
1 hour of coaching, mainly on gender determination, and I was still useless
Three successful breeders have since identified some Lavender Waxbill sound clips so we can all determine gender by call and its all been verified by DNA testing
Listen to the calls, see the sound scopes on -
gender and calls/ cock call
Gender determinination by call, confirmed by DNA sexing
Whatever other challenges Lavender Waxbills throw at you, after using this site at least you will know that you have pairs
Determing gender of Lavender Waxbills is not difficult. Experts say it's easy from their calls. They're right. What's the problem then?
Seems we are good at describing colour & smells to each other but poor at describing complex sounds in writing
A very good breeder of Lavender Waxbills describes the cock-call as a 'psee-psee'. Listen to the clips and see whether you agree
It certainly isn't how I would describe the call. Other Lavender Waxbill breeders use other descriptions
Listen to actual clips of the Waxbill's calls on following pages (thanks to Alice, Di and John for initial cock-call identification). Alice is happy with the more elusive hen call as well)
Each bird's gender has since been verified by DNA sexing - 100% right
How you then describe the cock Lavender call is immaterial. You will have heard it. Descriptions are then irrelevant
attractive
active - curious
friendly
easy to care for
gender determination (no more)
feather plucking
schizophrenic
difficult to breed (for me anyway)
Why has only 1 of 3 known breeding pairs parent reared once, under the same conditions as the others. And, why after that, did this pair lay but never even sit out the eggs properly?
2 - PluckingCan start quite suddenly between even a well bonded pair and can get very severe with the hen ending up virtually denuded and subject to chill. The advice I was given was to separate such pairs with wire mesh divider until feathers grow back
3 - WarA colony of say 10, lives happily together then suddenly one pair decides to nest and all hell breaks loose. The results are serious unless the aggressive pair isn't isolated immediately
1 hour of coaching, mainly on gender determination, and I was still useless
Three successful breeders have since identified some Lavender Waxbill sound clips so we can all determine gender by call and its all been verified by DNA testing
Listen to the calls, see the sound scopes on -
gender and calls/ cock call
www.blue-capped-waxbill.com/
www.parrot-finches.com
www.waxbillfinchsociety.org.uk/
www.welcomewildlife.co.uk
www.snorkellingphotography.com
