Diamond Firetail article (part 2)
Water.
Fresh water bowls are changed and cleaned at least twice a day. Diamonds like to bath at least once, every day of the year (even if kept outdoors, in winter). This is essential for the health of the bird, as clean plumage keeps them warm and more able to withstand cold temperatures and rain. 
Feeding.
My birds eat a commercial finch breeders mix with separate bowls of plain canary and red and white pannicum millet. Grass and weed seed is provided in large quantity every day of the year. Harvest sites are rotated to add variety of grass seed. Over four seasons they eat around thirty species of grass seed.
Bush fly maggots, "prepared in bran and fed on milk powder", are nearly always available and mealworms are kept as backup in case the maggots fail. Fresh corn is fed daily along with either silver beet, spinach, broccoli or cabbage etc. Charcoal grit, rock salt and cuttlefish bone are always available. Salt bush is fed at least weekly and is eagerly sought by all species I have kept. I don't feed any vitamin \mineral supplements.  

Breeding.
I believe that it is best when starting with any species to purchase at least six birds from as many different breeders as possible, this ensures genetic diversity is maintained in your flock and if a breeding bird is lost the season is not over.
Diamonds use a lot of grass at varying lengths to build their large, untidy nests. I feed a lot of grass seeds eliminating the need to supply grass for this purpose. Diamonds require feathers all year round to line both their roosting and breeding nests, if their supply wanes, nest raiding may take place. When I have witnessed diamonds raiding nests I have just added sanitised feathers and the raids have invariably ceased. My diamonds are all kept in mixed finch aviaries and rarely does any squabbling occur between diamonds and other species.
Between 4-8 eggs are laid, they hatch between the 12th and 14th day and fledge between 21-24 days although in bad weather the parents may keep them in an extra few days. The fledglings are independent 21 days after leaving the nest, I remove them at this stage as the parents become less tolerant of them and could easily be incubating their next nest. Young are duller than their parents, from 2-3 weeks after fledging they start slowly coloring up getting a little color on their black beaks first. The young are usually fully colored at around 12 weeks after fledging. In my aviaries the breeding diet is fed all year round, the birds regulate when they breed and when they rest. Some pairs have up to six nests in a row and then have a break of between 2-6 months, I believe they know best and I have seen no detrimental effects, my diamonds even have healthy clutches in the middle of winter.
Illness prevention.
As with any birds, a diamonds aviary should be kept clean and free from vermin and cats. Water and food dishes should be kept apart and changed and cleaned daily. All fresh food should be removed and replaced daily as birds will pick at stale, dirty food. My aviaries have earthen floors in the open flight section,  garden mulch is used for the floor. The mulch is either topped up or changed regularly, whenever it starts to look stale in summer and when too wet in winter, in order to prevent a rotting wet floor. All the finches delight in fossicking on the ground after the floor is changed.
Diamond firetails are susceptible to stress related illnesses and parasites, I carry out preventative treatments for these, but as I am not a vet it would be foolish of me to recommend medications. All advice on the medicating of ailments should be sought from your local Avian Veterinarian.

Mutations.     
In Australia various mutations have been bred from time to time including orange\yellow, white and fawn, none of these have been established in Australia. About two years ago a pair of normal looking Diamonds produced two orange young in my aviary. This was their first nest and after several more attempts the pair failed to raise any more young. So I made the tough decision to split them up and pair them to new normal mates, the cock failed to raise young but the hen turned out to be a good parent and has since fledged 14 young, 5 of which have been orange. The first two orange young (1 of each sex), have been paired to unrelated normals and both have had around 25% orange when I expected only splits. So I am still not entirely sure as to there genetic mode of inheritance. The issue is made even more confusing when I have made enquiries overseas on the Internet and found the mutation to be recessive in the U.S.A and sex linked in Europe. Overseas this mutation is known as yellow, in the U.S.A Breeders have produced a yellow (lemon colored) mutation which they call "Golden yellow".
I started calling my newly bred mutations orange simply because that's what color they are, the cock bird is nearly the exact color of an aussie navel orange and the hens are slightly lighter. If I see a lemon colored specimen one day no doubt I'll call it yellow!
Normal Male with Orange Hen
To Diamond Photos.
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