Nightmare time

[Dramoth]

Hey all,

We are just about to have a nightmare with our aviary of finches. We have just entered their breeding season and we have 6 hatchlings (3 born in the last 2 days I think) and because we don't use nesting boxes, we just use baskets... and one enterprising pair set up a nest under the tin of the roof which has a new born in it.

Our nightmare is that we are moving house over the next 2 weeks. We had a load of luck when we moved house last year because one of our nests had eggs in it and one of the eggs went on to hatch. This time, we have 3 nests with babies in it. Our plan is to put a tarp over one end of the aviary and just drive around slowly to the new house leaving all the birds in there.

Does anyone have any suggestions for protecting the baby in the nest under the roof?

[Sheather]

If you feel the nest is not secure enough to weather the trip remove it as soon as possible and slip the single chick in with those in another nest.

[lovezebs]

Dramoth

I agree with Dylan. The one chick should be fine with another clutch for the move.

If you are considering replacing him back in the original nest after the move, mark him with a tiny dot of food colouring (to be able to identify him later). Or you could just leave him to be fostered by the other pair.

Afterwards, you will have to pay very close attention, as to whether all the parents are feeding all the chicks, and haven't abandoned them.

Are these Societies or Zebra Finches?

[Dramoth]

Thanks guys,

Moving the aviary will be the very last thing to be shifted from this house to the next which means it will probably be moved in 12-14 days time. This should give the youngster a couple of weeks worth of feathers to growing the trip. And when it is time to move the aviary, I will move the youngster in with one of the other clutches (possibly the one that were hatched around the same time),

@lovezebs, they are Zebra's

As I mentioned, we moved the aviary last year, from our old house an hours drive away, we didnt realise that we had eggs in the nest when we moved. When we got here, we had to tip the aviary onto it's side to screw in another baseboard and... very surprisingly, the one egg survived the trip and the tip and eventually hatched out into a lovely little standard male Zeb

Cheers,

[lovezebs]

Dramoth

Good luck, and let us know how your babies are doing, and how this move goes.

I wouldn't tip the aviary sideways with chicks in the nests. If you absolutely must, than I would take the nests, chicks and all, and place them into a secure cardboard box and tape it shut for a few minutes (don't forget airholes ).

[Dramoth]

lovezebs The tipping of the aviary happened during our move last year. We removed all the birds from it before the move (we only had 8 this time last year) and as I said, we didnt realise that there were eggs in the nest.

This year, we are only travelling about 5km (not 100km) during this move, so we are going to leave the birds and nests in there and wrap a big tarp around the door end so that the birds have somewhere to hide.

[Sally]

Hope that all goes well during your move, please let us know how it went! I agree with the others, that one lone baby would probably be better off removed and placed under fosters at least temporarily. You'd have to keep an eye on it to make sure it was fed.

[Dramoth]

The good news is that we now have 2 nests that we can foster the single hatchling into. It appears we had another two hatchlings appear overnight.

We currently have the following:
2-3 Fledglings in one nest - they appear fully feathered atm and should start flying shortly.
1 hatchling in the nest in the pic attached to this post.
2 hatchlings in another nest
2 hatchlings in a 4th nest... this nest also has another 2 eggs in it which might hatch in the next couple of days.

It seems our little kids have had a busy start to spring

[Dramoth]

And speak of the devil, went out this morning to find that 2 of the three fledglings are out of the nest learning to fly

[lovezebs]

Dramoth

Congratulations on the two fledglings .

When is your move coming up?

[Dramoth]

The aviary will virtually be the last thing that we will be moving next week. I am hoping like hell that the other 5 hatchlings are almost ready to fly by the time we move the cage. If not, we will have to carefully move the little tacker from under the roof into one of the other cages.

I think that regardless, I will remove all the nests when we get it over to the new house so we can maneuver it around without having to worry about the real little babies.

[lovezebs]

Dramoth

Be careful with moving or removing nests that have chicks almost ready to fledge. They will jump nest if startled or disturbed, so make sure it's done in a room with closed windows and doors, or you might have a disaster on your hands. At least if they get away from you in a controlled setting, you'll be able to snap them up easily enough.

[Dramoth]

Well... there is some good news... and some sad news.

We successfully made the move. We moved the nests with the hatchlings in them into the flight cage we brought for the move and they all survived the move successfully. Although, we have lost 2 youngsters in the nest after the move was made. One was just about to fledge with it's siblings and the other, from the other nest was about 4-6 days away from being ready to fledge. That is part of the sad news.

The one we moved and fostered in one of the other nests has successfully fledged.

The other part of the sad news is that we lost all 7 eggs in the other 2 nests. They didnt survive the move unfortunately We had a feeling that they wouldnt survive so we weren't too upset about their loss. However, the little bleeders have since laid approximately 13 eggs so we should have another batch of little kids in a couple of weeks.

So... in wrapping up, we had 3 nests with babies in it, 3 (2 survived), 3 (2 survived) 3+1 fosterling (3 survived). We lost 1 fledgeling before the move and 2 chicks after the move.

I would say it was a success in the end

[lovezebs]

Dramoth

Sorry about the three you lost, but good news that the rest survived.

Would love to see some pictures of your crew.

[Dramoth]

I've posted a few in the gallery, but I took a bunch of new picks last week and once I have full broadband access again, I will post them up

And just to show how busy our little birds are, we now have approximately 5 new hatchlings

So, including the 3 we lost , we have had approximately 15 hatchlings this year.