FINCHforum

My society finches have to babies 2 weeks old today and yesterday i placed a 1 day old hatchling zebra in the nest. Today i checked and he was still alive with food in his crop. I also saw a new gould hatch in there nest with 2 more to go. They have a big wicker nest and was wondering if they will all do good in there together and not be squished by the 2 week old ones?

I don't keep societies and don't know much about there behavior.There seems to be alot of age difference in the chicks.which is not good.I would imagine the societies will be ready to fledge in a week or so.There will be alot of competition for food in the mean time.I was wondering how did this come about?Three different birds at three different stages?Did you lose the parents of the other chicks?As one parent can raise a clutch after hatching,usually more successful the older the bird.

I added a 2 day old abandoned chick to the societies that were fostering 7 day old chicks. They only fed the older chicks. The younger chick was a society and the older chicks were Shaft-tails that the parents abandoned.
Chicks grow so quickly even a 5 day difference is a lot not to mention a 2 week difference. Hopefully your societies will notice the tiny chick and care for it.

Chances are the little ones may end up squished.

Sean

And even if they don't get squished, they might get overlooked at feeding time. The larger, older birds will make more noise and will beg more noticeably, so the littler ones may not get fed enough to thrive.

I just checked again and the crops have food in them. Could i take out one of the fostering socities and place them in a cage in a diffrent nest with hthe hatchlings? Right now i have a pair and there first baby who is 3 months old now. If i wanted to take either mom or dad out into a new cage would they care for the hatchlings? I had to put the zebra hatchling in with the societies because mom and dad werent feeding them and 2 died. and my goulds sat on the eggs for about a week and then stopped but now they built a new nest and the female is laying eggs again.

You're kind of between a rock and a hard place. Moving one of the Societies to another cage with a new nest may disturb it enough to stop caring for the babies, or it may do just fine. When my two Societies raised 4 BCCBs and 4 Strawberries in one nest, the babies all hatched within days of each other, so they were always close in size. At night, they were all 10 in the nest, even up to fledging, this was a large size hooded wicker nest, but it sure got crowded in there.

One advantage is that Societies and Zebras grow very fast, but they will still try to pile in the nest at night.

I got lucky when I put a Star Finch egg in to my Society's nest with 2 Gouldian chicks already there - 6 and 7 days old. Luckily my Societies did hatch the egg and raised, fledged and weaned the Star Finch right along with the week older Gouldians. I know such is not always the case though. Good luck with whatever you decide.

I don't know how they can even breath but I have 12 sociatys the spend the night in one hooded nest. They started with 8 + 4 eggs and it stayed that way till now. The parents did move out to a second nest with their nexted cluch but only one chick lived that time. now he trys to get in the nest with the others. 12 seems to be max capacity for the nest and it seems to be first come first served. there are other nests but that is the highest in the cage. I think they think, that it is part of the Hilton chain.

I dont want to have to check everyday, but my societies are very good at raising there own chicks. i checked this morning and the zebra and gould both had food in there crops and i have a large wicker nest and so far they have not been squisshed they stay behind the older ones but there is enough room for all of them to be in the open where the parents can see all of them. I am definently getting another pair of socities but maybe 2 males or 2 females instead of a male and female pair.

That sounds like a good plan Jamezy. At least you won't have to worry about Society babies! Good to hear they are all being looked after too!

After i moved the zebra baby to the socities, i took out the zebra pair and am going to rehome them. That will make more room for the toher finches and i really dont want the zebras anyaways i have had them long enough and i really dont want anymore babies from them.

Well the zebra hatchling and gould baby are still doing good in the socities nest. They both had full crops today when i checked about an hour ago.

YAY - so far so good then! Hoping it stays that way for you.

Everything is still going good for the babies. I am going to the store to buy a syringe and baby formula to help feed the young to make sure everyone is getting there share, but there crops have been staying pretty full. And i can hear the babies begging now. The society babies should be fledging by the end of next week leaving the 2 young one in there for the parents to take care of better.