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Common Names
Long-tailed Grassfinch, Heck's shaft-tail, Black Heart finch

Description
Shaft-tails can be difficult to sex. Males and females are nearly identical in appearance. When placed side-by-side, the male's throat bib will appear a bit wider and triangular than the female's. (Photo - the female is on the left, male on the right) The male may also have a cleaner gray on the head and the flank stripe is said to be thicker as well. The male also has a rather high-pitched song that accompanies a hopping sort of dance. The head bobbing that is seen in both sexes is more often seen performed by the male.

Diet
A standard finch mix will be fine with Shaft-tail finches. They eagerly take egg food (Roy's egg food), greens and soaked millet. Grit and calcium in the form of crushed egg and oyster shells and cuttlebone should always be available to them.

Breeder's Notes
The Shaft-tail can be considered an eager breeder if given the right accommodations. Some breeders have reported success with breeding them in a colony situations, but I've had had better luck by placing them as individual pairs in flights or cages. Probably because the colonies I tried to use were not large enough. They are fine in mixed collections with birds that are able to hold their ground, but Shaft-tails can be inquisitive and annoying to other more shy breeders. They are active birds and I like to give them at least a 3' flight cage or an outside aviary to fly in. (3' flight cage) This also keeps them from breaking the long points on their tails which gives the bird its name. I have bred Shafttails in my smaller breeding cages as well.

Shaft-tails like to get down and hide in their nests. While they will take a basket or other similar nest, I prefer to use a standard sized finch box with a hole at the top. This lets them build their nests deeper in the bottom and hide below the entrance hole. (click to see nestbox) They will build a rough nest, but I can't say that they were master builders. I provided coco fibers, long grasses, rice hay and various soft materials, but there did not seem to be a preference for any particular material. The average clutch is 4-7 eggs and incubation lasts approximately 13 days. Both sexes share in the incubation duties and the feeding of the young. No additional food items were offered other than to increase the amount of egg food, which they eagerly ate and quickly provided the young. The young will fledge at approximately 21 days and will require an additional 21 days to be independent. I have read that the young, while able to eat on their own, remain somewhat reliant on their parents and that too early of a separation might result in some losses. I can't say if this is true or not, but I left the young in with the parents for quite a while before moving them to a different cage. (by eFinch.com)

Buy cheap African Silverbill

The African Silverbill (Lonchura cantans) is a small passerine bird formerly considered conspecific with the Asian species Indian Silverbill, (Lonchura malabarica). This estrildid finch is a common resident breeding bird in dry savanna habitat, south of the Sahara Desert. This species is also been introduced to a few countries such as Portugal, Qatar and USA

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This is a lively finch with quick movements, which makes a peaceful yet interesting addition to a mixed aviary. However, it also has a tendency to pluck its own feathers and also those of its companions. For this reason, it is recommended that only one pair of this specie should be kept. A lone pair des not pluck each other quite so readily as several kept together. This specie becomes tamed very quickly and has a quiet murmuring song, which is repeated quite frequently as it settles down to roost.

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The green singer finch is a small African relative of the canary. Only the males sing in a beautiful lilting voice. Males and females resemble each other, but the females tend to be duller in color. Green singing finches require privacy when breeding. They can also become extremely aggressive and territorial during breeding season, so house only the male and female together. The finches are quite hardy and long-lived. Average lifespan can easily top 20 years. They also tame easily and make wonderful companions. Green singers have strong breeding instincts that need to be addressed, even as pets.

Read more: How to Breed Green Singer Finches | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5858911_breed-green-singer-finches.html#ixzz1PmehI2Sx

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The Zebra Finch, Taeniopygia guttata, is the most common and familiar estrildid finch of Central Australia and ranges over most of the continent, avoiding only the cool moist south and the tropical far north. It also can be found natively in Indonesia and Timor-Leste. The bird has been introduced to Puerto Rico , Portugal, Brazil , and the U.S..

The ground-dwelling Zebra Finch grows to a size of about 10 centimetres (3.9 in) long and prefers to eat grass seeds.^[2] This species' vocalizations consist mostly of chattering trills and calls. (by Wikipedia)

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The average Goldfinch is 12–13 cm long with a wingspan of 21–25 cm and a weight of 14 to 19 grams. The sexes are broadly similar, with a red face, black and white head, warm brown upperparts, white underparts with buff flanks and breast patches, and black and yellow wings. On closer inspection male Goldfinches can often be distinguished by a larger, darker red mask that extends just behind the eye. In females, the red face does not reach the eye. The ivory-coloured bill is long and pointed, and the tail is forked. Goldfinches in breeding condition have a white bill, with a greyish or blackish mark at the tip for the rest of the year. Juveniles have a plain head and a greyer back but are unmistakable due to the yellow wing stripe. Birds in central Asia (caniceps group) have a plain grey head behind the red face, lacking the black and white head pattern of European and western Asian birds. (by Wikipedia)

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The Bengalese finch (Lonchura striata domestica), known in the United States as the society finch, is not a naturally-occurring species but rather a fertile hybrid. It is the most domesticated of the "finches" (it is actually a Munia) but its ancestry is the subject of debate. Nobody is quite certain which wild finches the Bengalese is descended from, but the Striated Finch and the White-rumped Munia are thought to have played a considerable role in their development. They are well adapted to captivity and do well in the company of humans. They breed well and are good foster parents for other finch-like species.

While two males may not get along without other company, it has been found the best "pairing" for fostering is to use two males, this works better than either two females or a male and female pairing. Two males will usually accept eggs, or even partly grown young without any hesitation.

These birds are a very close flock species and tend to all roost in the one nest if kept in a group. This tends to make breeding harder in an aviary situation, and they breed better if kept as single pairs in individual breeding boxes [as used for Canaries and Budgies]. This close flocking behaviour is also responsible for their American name of "Society Finch".

They are cheerful little birds that are quite easy to look after. They are also quite easy to breed provided they are, of course, adequately sexed. Obtaining a female-male pair can present a difficulty because both sexes look exactly the same at first glance. However, it is possible to determine gender by behavior since males tend to display to impress and court females. The best way of using this method to sex Bengalese is to place a single bird in a small cage and completely isolate it from its own kind [both sight and hearing] for several hours; then introduce another Bengalese to the cage. If the first bird is a male it will immediately display to the newcomer. Unfortunately this does not necessarily mean the introduced bird is a female. But if the first bird does not display it is almost certainly a hen.

However, a quicker and more sure method of sexing is to compare both the head width [in a line across the top of the head between the eyes], and the shape of the under-side of the beak. The male has a much broader head than the female; and the male's under-beak [where the beak meets the feathers of the neck] is a "V' shape and the hen's more rounded like the bottom of the letter "U". In both these methods the two birds should be held side by side to compare.

Feeding is simple, as all they require to remain healthy and breed well is a diet of small millets, green-food, grit and fresh water. They will not usually take live-foods, but it has been found they will often accept house fly pupae, which they crack like seed. This is particularly useful if they are being used to foster species that require a high protein component to be successfully reared. (by Wikipedia)

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The Gouldian Finch, Erythrura gouldiae (or Chloebia gouldiae), also known as the Lady Gouldian Finch, Gould's Finch or the Rainbow Finch, is a colorful passerine bird endemic to Australia. There is strong evidence of a continuing decline, even at the best-known site near Katherine in the Northern Territory. Large numbers are bred in captivity, particularly in Australia. In the state of South Australia, National Parks & Wildlife Department permit returns in the late 1990s showed that over 13,000 Gouldian Finches were being kept by aviculturists. If extrapolated to an Australia-wide figure this would result in a total of over 100,000 birds. In 1992, it was classified as "Endangered in the wild" under IUCN's criteria C2ai. This was because the viable population size was estimated to be less than 2,500 mature individuals, no permanent subpopulation was known to contain more than 250 mature individuals, and that a continuing decline was observed in the number of mature individuals. It is currently subject to a conservation program.  (by Wikipedia)