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Visitor # |  DevNull is no ordinary Zebra Finch. She's my baby. I raised her from nestling to the beautiful young lady she is today. If you've already read my article on hand raising a finch you probably already know a little about DevNull and how she was raised. In this article I would like to focus on DevNull as a pet.  DevNull, whom I also call Dev, has so much personality for a finch. She's surprised me in many ways. The first surprise came when I expected she would go wild after her hand feeding was done. She had regular contact (not physical) with the few pairs of retired finches I keep in my room and I naturally expected that she would prefer to be with her own kind after once she no longer needed me. I was wrong. Dev has remained as tame as when she was being fed every 2 hours. I don't think she realizes she's a finch.
Dev learned very quickly to eat human foods, before long she was getting into everything. After months and months of work she has learned not to jump into the plate, she'll eat from the edge. She also learned which rooms she has permission to fly into, and not to land on the humans heads. The fact that she did learn all of these behaviors really impressed me. There are times she'll want to enter a finch free zone and will display her desires by hovering in the general direction but she rarely enters without a human escort. When she's not playing, eating, preening, or sleeping she'll seek out a nice head rub from another member of the flock (the human flock members). She enjoys having her head gently rubbed and her back stroked so much, she's express her appreciation by preening my hair. I can no longer count the hours I've spent just holding Dev in my hand while she napped. She often appears to be dreaming. Her eyes will move, her legs kick, and occasionally she'll make faint sounds. he may even awaken after a short dream but with a few strokes of her head she'll be fast asleep again. Unlike my other pets, Dev doesn't have a cage. She lives on the shelf she picked in my room. I have a small towel on the shelf to soften it and keep her warm. Her shelf has some mall family photos on it, she particularly likes to sleep behind the photos of my cousins. Her seed and water cups are hooked on the side of my retired breeder finch cage where she can always access them. Yes she does eat bird seed, I made sure she would accept seed, millet, and cuttlebone.  When Dev was around 9 months old she laid her first egg. She laid it in my fathers hand. After watching her struggle and work to push the egg out I gained a hugh respect for my female breeders in the aviary. Dev was hot and tired after the 30 seconds it took to work the egg out but she was so proud and not quite sure what the egg was or what to do with it. Since then she's laid 2 eggs in my hands and the rest have all been on her shelf.
DevNull is a delightful pet finch, much more-so than I ever hoped for. I love her dearly, she'll always be my baby even if she's technically an adult now. Born in late November 1998 DevNull was 6 years old when she died today July 10th 2005. She will always be loved and dearly missed. My sweet baby girl. I love you. More great DevNull articles: Learning Curve & Complete Story Article © Myra Markley 2005 |
