FINCHforum

To make a long story short, I have been taking care of a baby zebra finch for the past 4 days ( it's now 6 days old). The parents pushed it to the side of the nest and put nesting material on top of it. I never saw them take care of it for two days. So I stepped in. When I put it in a paper towel it was barely moving. I went on finchform and after reading lots of info, I went to work on trying to save the little guy. I am still shocked at the size of this baby. I have been following some good advise and I think the baby is doing fine so far. However, could someone verify that the rear end of the baby is suppose to look a bit scary, sorry I don't know a better way to put it. It's red, green and quite large, is this the way it should look. Is there a way to tell the sex at this time, we would like to name it. Also, is it suppose to go pee/poo after each time it eats? It now goes about 3-4 time a day. Thanks for helping the new mommy. ps I am keeping it as our new baby and will not reintroduce it to the other 8 finches. I am very attached already.

Good for you to try and save this little baby. You are in for some long days and nights with little sleep. As far as your question about its rear end, without a picture, it's hard to tell. Since they are naked at this stage, they do look out of proportion and pretty ugly. It is normal for them to poop every time they eat. It is a good idea to line whatever you are keeping it in with kleenex, so you can put clean kleenex down every time it eats. At this stage, it needs to eat about every 2-3 hours, even during the night--it isn't quite old enough to go thru the night yet. It needs to be kept warm (again, no feathers to keep itself warm). And there is no way to tell the sex till it is older and gets its feathers in. Yes, you do get terribly attached to them--when it starts chirping when it sees your face, you will just melt. If you keep it separate from the other finches, it will stay somewhat handtamed; if you put it in with 8 Zebras, it will revert to a normal Zebra very quickly.

hi kathleen
there is a link here of some babies,see if they look anything like these


http://efinch.com/species/cfwzeb.htm


ken