Need advice on Zebra Finches...

PeterLT

I have pair of beautiful and healthy zebra finches. I'm trying to breed them, made a big cage for young finches and planing to stop when I'll have 10 of them.

Parents succesfully bred one female already and when she was still in the parents cage, mum laid another set of eggs. After few days, I have found eggs broken. First I thought that was a newborn finches fault so I put her into separate cage (she was 5 weeks old so nearly independent). But the problem persisted. Now two parents are living in the same cage, mating and loving each other, nobody disturbs and bothers them. They keep laying eggs, but they keep breaking them as well...

I provide extra calcium for female, they are healty and happy, but what causes that behaviour to break their eggs?

Any help would be appreciated because I'm stumped, so thank you in advance.

Peter

star-pants

I really don't know much if anything about birds but google gave me this:

If you are checking the finch's nest for eggs and chicks every day; this may be causing stress – stop checking the nest

If your family is always running around the finch cage or playing loud music or games near the finches – move the finches to a less active area of your home.

If your finches are laying clutch after clutch and abandoning the nest or the eggs just aren't hatching – remove the nest and give them a break for at least 2 months.

If your finches feel open and exposed they may not nest properly – give them privacy.

I was going to say that maybe it was because they had a daughter already they didn't want more. But if you removed the daughter that may not be the reason. And you've given them calcium which is another solution seemingly. Do you know which one breaks the eggs?

banjopaul

star-pants wrote: »

I really don't know much if anything about birds but google gave me this:

If you are checking the finch's nest for eggs and chicks every day; this may be causing stress – stop checking the nest

If your family is always running around the finch cage or playing loud music or games near the finches – move the finches to a less active area of your home.

If your finches are laying clutch after clutch and abandoning the nest or the eggs just aren't hatching – remove the nest and give them a break for at least 2 months.

If your finches feel open and exposed they may not nest properly – give them privacy.

I was going to say that maybe it was because they had a daughter already they didn't want more. But if you removed the daughter that may not be the reason. And you've given them calcium which is another solution seemingly. Do you know which one breaks the eggs?

Are they laying the eggs in a nest or are you finding them on the bottom of the cage?

banjopaul

star-pants wrote: »

I was going to say that maybe it was because they had a daughter already they didn't want more. But if you removed the daughter that may not be the reason. And you've given them calcium which is another solution seemingly. Do you know which one breaks the eggs?

Hahaha thats hilarious!

star-pants

banjopaul wrote: »

Hahaha thats hilarious!

lol re reading I see what you mean, I just meant that in the animal world, when parents already have a child or children sometimes they or the father will kill or reject the next batch.

It's seen a lot in the cat world for example, tigers may reject their young if they already have some.

PeterLT

star-pants wrote: »

I was going to say that maybe it was because they had a daughter already they didn't want more. But if you removed the daughter that may not be the reason. And you've given them calcium which is another solution seemingly. Do you know which one breaks the eggs?

Well I did research on web aswell, I have read almost every article there, but no luck...

Their main instinct is to reproduce, so they should be willing to lay eggs and "make" more birds, but no. The cage is in quiet place and nobody is bothering them. I think it's the female that breaks the eggs... I allways suspected she's a little manky. Cock does all the hard work, building the nest, taking care, feeding the babies. Chick just eats and f****...

Haven't a clue why she's breaking the eggs

star-pants

That's so odd, poor daddy bird

I also read on one of those sites that you can get 'fake' eggs - so if they usually break the eggs or something, you can swap the real ones for fake ones and take care of the real ones yourself until they're born. Would that be an option?

PeterLT

banjopaul wrote: »

Are they laying the eggs in a nest or are you finding them on the bottom of the cage?

They are laying them inside the nest and breaks them there. When she's doing that, cock starts to make that loud noise (to deter other cocks, thats their instinct), so everything is fine there. But after couple of minutes eggs are broken. Eventually she eats them.

And rule out that she is hungry - she has plenty of food all the time

PeterLT

star-pants wrote: »

That's so odd, poor daddy bird

I also read on one of those sites that you can get 'fake' eggs - so if they usually break the eggs or something, you can swap the real ones for fake ones and take care of the real ones yourself until they're born. Would that be an option?

Made pair of the my self, they look pretty real

Again, I put fake eggs into the nest and dad was fooled by them - he started to sit on them all the time. After few days I was sorry for him, so I took out fake ones. And after few days mum laid another one... and ate it. But in my opinion she will break them anyway (i mean real ones, doubt if she could break plastic ones).

To take care and incubate the eggs "manualy" could be an option... I think it could be done, but as I know it's hard to feed the hatchlings...

Another option would be - to take out the nest and give them a rest from laying. As I know they'll stop doing that if there will be no nest.

Anyway, I think I'll call into my local pet store and ask there.

Thanks for your help.

star-pants

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Maybe do give them a rest for a while. Trying to take care of hatchlings yourself is probably quite hard. Maybe someone in the pet store might have experience, or someone on here will see this later

PeterLT

star-pants wrote: »

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Maybe do give them a rest for a while. Trying to take care of hatchlings yourself is probably quite hard. Maybe someone in the pet store might have experience, or someone on here will see this later

Cheers bud.

banjopaul

star-pants wrote: »

lol re reading I see what you mean, I just meant that in the animal world, when parents already have a child or children sometimes they or the father will kill or reject the next batch.

It's seen a lot in the cat world for example, tigers may reject their young if they already have some.

Ah yeah I guess I see where your coming from. Zebra finches are breeding machines though, its wired into them!:pac: They don't exactly think it through, I had two fledglings leave the nest last week and the parents were trying to build a new nest the next day!

PeterLT wrote: »

They are laying them inside the nest and breaks them there. When she's doing that, cock starts to make that loud noise (to deter other cocks, thats their instinct), so everything is fine there. But after couple of minutes eggs are broken. Eventually she eats them.

And rule out that she is hungry - she has plenty of food all the time

That's really odd, never come across anything like that before.