FINCHforum

A good many years ago we bought a male and a female zebra finch to put in our large aviary. They went well, but the female just turned up dead one day...don't know why - nothing seemed to be wrong with her body.

We didn't want to leave the male alone, so we bought another female for him and to begin with it seemed to go well. We noticed he would peck her a bit but it didn't seem to be serious. We had her for about two years and just the other day we found her on the floor of the aviary with all her feathers puffed up, breathing quickly and she died that day...all seemed to be fine the day before. When we removed the body, we could see that at the back of her neck feathers were missing and there were marks there. We think her injuries must've been from the male pecking her, but we don't know if that is what brought about her death. The injuries looked like they'd been there a long time.

Anyway, because the male finch seems very aggressive, we don't know what to do next but obviously don't want to leave him on his own. It seems like a bad idea getting him another lone female to peck away at. Would he be less aggressive if he had more finches in there with him, such as three or four new females? Or would it be a good idea to buy a couple of new females and one new male? Our finch is a good many years old now...he has out-lived two females and while we don't want any more aggressive pecking, we also don't want him to get crunched by a young male if they start brawling! Any help would be very much appreciated.

What other kinds of birds do you have in your avairy now? Is this lone Zebra the only finch? I assume this is a non-breeding aviary? Your first hen could have died from old age. And the second from egg binding. Those are just guesses on my part. A cock can pester a hen to death though. I once had a young cock nearly kill an older hen in one day by chasing her around endlessly and pulling almost every feather she had! They can be ruthless when wanting to mate.

If you are not interested in breeding I would get your Zebra a few male buddies. Without hens they should get along fine. Societies would be a good alternative. But they are difficult to sex, so take care if you go that route.

hi hawk
if your birds have been in a cage/aviary without any nests in it is quite possible that he has killed her through trying to drive her to nest and if there is no nest or nesting site..then the males can get very aggressive towards the females as tammie says if you are not intending to breed and you just want some companions for your zebra i would get a couple of societys or another couple of male zebras but the chances are there mat be some territorial fighting due to your zebra being in there for such a long while if i was you i would try and get some other small finches to keep him company preferably nothing he is attracted to i.e.societys

ken

My guess is he did some feather plucking, but the second hen died from egg binding. Do you give them a calcium source?

Hilary

Tammie, Kenny and Hilary - thank you so much for your replies.

I've since read about egg binding and unfortunately that does sound like what happened to the female.

Tammie, the zebra finch is the only bird in there now. We originally had a pair of diamond doves in there with the two finches, but the doves died many years ago. When we got the second female finch, she kept laying a lot of eggs on the floor, so I bought a basket nest to attach to the wall, and put some special nest filling in it and over the floor - the hen never took any interest in it though. She just kept laying eggs on the floor. I was told to try placing a fresh egg of hers in the nest manually, and that she would sit on it, which I tried several times, but it never worked.

It is amazing how aggressive one little finch can be, to pull out all the hen's feathers! Your suggestion for a few male buddies sounds really good, as the aviary probably isn't set up properly for breeding anyway. Societies also sound like a good option.

Kenny, it sounds as if that may be why the male gave the female's head such a bad pecking. The female never took to the nest, though - it was up high in a dry spot, etc...the idea of it just didn't seem to click with her. I really like the idea of more zebra males or possibly societies, but my mother (who also cares for the birds) isn't so keen to give up on the idea of hens.

Hilary, it sounds as if your guess is spot on - there is no source of calcium in their diet. I'm appalled with myself for not thinking to put in cuttlebone!

Thank you again, you've all been so much help. Cuttlebone is definitely on the to-buy list, and I will have to discuss which birds to put in with the zebra.

If you get another female put the nest in and some material and the male should make a nest impress her and then she will start to lay eggs then when she does buy some plastic canary eggs and take the egg she laid out an replace it with the plastic egg and then she will brood the eggs then after a couple of weeks take the plastic eggs out. repeat this as nessecery then you get no actual breeding but still have two healthy finches