Night Incubation

[xboxpal]

Hi, I was wondering, is it normal for a gouldian to not incubate at night? I have a pair and I gave them the nest box with a little porch on the outside, which then leads to the nesting box itself. At night, it the male sleeps out on the porch, but the female isn't inside incubating. I notice in the mornings however, both take turns incubating the eggs. Is this normal? I don't remember where I heard this, but usually if the temperature is warm, the gouldians find there is no need to incubate at night.

Thank you

[debbie276]

How many eggs are in the clutch?
Normally the hen is the one that sits at night but doesn't sit till there are about 4 eggs.
What is the temperature where you are? It's not normal for them to not sit if it's hot out but I suppose it could happen.

[xboxpal]

My mistake, it appears as though she is still laying eggs. She is on her 9th egg and is still not sitting on it yet

It seems like quite a lot, so I do not even know what is happening

[debbie276]

Are they an experienced pair? 9 is quite a few eggs but not unheard of. Has she laid eggs 9 days in a row?

[hanabi]

xboxpal

I'm seeing exactly the same thing here; in fact I was going to post a new thread on this very topic. I have a silver female and SF pastel blue male, both inexperienced according to the breeder. The female would sit on the eggs during the day with some help from the male. At night they would both sit outside the next, leaving the eggs at room temperature (around 25 degree C./77 F). This concerned me greatly, because is it not the case that once eggs are warmed for several hours they will start to develop? And then if left cold for 12 hours they would perish?

As xboxpal mentioned, it would indeed seem to be the case that the hen was not incubating full-time because she had not finished laying yet. My hen laid a total of eight eggs, about one each day, before I rescued them by placing them in my Hovabator incubator. I figured that I needed to rescue them, because most of the older eggs probably perished due to the 12 hour on/12 hour off incubation cycle of the hen, or perished because they were getting too old (7+ days had passed since the start of the laying cycle). I might point out that I am a complete newbie to finches so perhaps it was better to leave the eggs with the hen and keep my fingers crossed?

Without wishing to high-jack this thread (I think xboxpal will also find any replies to this question of benefit), are there any other Gouldian owners/carers/breeders who have seen this behaviour before? If so, do the eggs remain viable despite this 12h on/12h off warming cycle? Or do most eggs perish apart from perhaps the most recently laid?

The hen has started laying again after about a week's rest, and is up to three eggs as of today. Same 12h incubation cycle again unfortunately. I'll choose my course of action (rescue or not) based on the replies here.

Thanks in advance for any replies that may help xboxpal and myself.

[debbie276]

When you rescued the eggs did they hatch?
An inexperienced pair may not get it right for a couple of clutches. I have known eggs to survive the on again off again incubation but it really depends on the environment and temperatures. Eggs will most definitely be viable for longer then a week.
Just because a bird is in the nest doesn't necessarily mean it is incubating the eggs.
Personally I would let the birds figure it out, especially if it's a young pair.

[hanabi]

When you rescued the eggs did they hatch?

I rescued them after the 8th egg was laid on the 11th October. I candled each egg last night and was pleasantly surprised. Five eggs have visible blood vessels, with three of those having obvious movement inside. I didn't take the time to check for movement in the other two eggs because I didn't want to keep them out of the incubator for too long. Of the three eggs without obvious blood vessels, two appear to be infertile, and one may be viable but is probably dead (I'll check again in a few days time).

I was also surprised to find that egg development was not so far advanced, and each egg appeared to have different developmental progress. I'm thus guessing (wild guess) that development started at different times for each egg, and simply paused or slowed down during the long periods that the hen was not on the nest. So, it would appear the 12 hour on/12 off incubation by the female did not kill the embryos as I had feared, although we won't know until they have hatched as to whether the lack of continuous incubation caused some sort of detrimental effect.

Another interesting observation is that, the fact that each egg has different development suggests the eggs were developing in the nest rather than from the time they were housed in the incubator (i.e., if incubation started when they were housed in the incubator, each egg should have similar development).

Eggs will most definitely be viable for longer then a week

Ok that is good to know (I had read that viability drops rapidly after about the 7th day).

Just because a bird is in the nest doesn't necessarily mean it is incubating the eggs.

Yes that is a good point, although I use a nest that is the most commonly used here in Japan - a small straw(?) nest, so there is very little room for the hen to sit without warming the eggs.

As always, thanks for your reply Debbie.

[MiaCarter]

I agree with debbie276 on letting them figure it out on their own if you don't have a foster available (unless you're adept at handfeeding).

It does take some time for inexperienced birds to figure it out. It serves as nature's parental screening process - if you don't care for the eggs properly, you don't get babies! (Now if only we could implement something similar for humans! LOL)

My worry would be that if you artificially incubated and planned to return the babies to the parents who are already showing that their instincts aren't all that well developed, then chances are they would lose at least a couple (or more) due to the learning curve.

But if you can handfeed or have a foster, that would work out nicely.

I've seen birds perform spotty incubation and we had hatching despite this. It's possible she'll start incubating more reliably once laying is complete - some birds don't sit until they're finished with the clutch.

My guess with the 9 eggs is that it may be more than one clutch?

[Madcat]

Beautiful. Have you bred silver with blue before?

[debbie276]

Beautiful. Have you bred silver with blue before?

It is not recommended to breed 2 Blues together till the gene pool is much larger.

[lovezebs]

debbie276

Are Silver's, considered Blue's as well?

[lovezebs]

xboxpal

I would let them figure it out on their own.
If she has nine eggs, let her sit on nine eggs, and see what happens.

If this is a first clutch, it's hard to say what the results will be. Some of the eggs might be empty, some might be good, so I would just leave them alone for now.

One time, I had a Society nest, where everybody went to lay eggs. I think there was something like 16 eggs in there at one time. In the end none of these eggs ended up being any good. And yet, these Societies, later went on to laying, brooding and hatching other eggs without any problems. Everybody's got to learn somehow .

Good luck.

[lovezebs]

hanabi

I am very curious to know, what your plans are for the eggs in your incubator , if and when they hatch (?)

Are you planning on hand feeding the babies?
As far as I know (someone correct me if I'm wrong), but if the parents don't incubate and hatch the eggs themselves, they will not accept these babies as their own and will not feed them. In fact (from personal experience), they may maim, toss, or outright kill these chicks.

If you're considering placing these eggs under fosters, I would do it sooner rather than later.

Good luck.

[MiaCarter]

lovezebs - Well, in theory, you could give them to a foster or even the bio parents after hatching. (But that assumes the bio parents would feed them. If they've fed before and just don't incubate well, it could work. But if they've never been successful in raising babies, I wouldn't expect them to care for the babies once hatched.)

Generally though, you need to prep the fosters with dummy eggs so they know to expect babies (though some very experienced fosters will take babies without prep.)

[lovezebs]

MiaCarter

These are first time parents Mia, so I'm assuming they are not experienced.

I've had Gouldians (the same pair with fledges now) where Societies took over the nest, and hatched the Gouldian eggs. The Gouldian parents never accepted these chicks. In fact, one disappeared (assumed killed), one was tossed Into bath water , and drowned. The rest were plucked and slightly injured, and I had to remove the actual parents to another flight, to save these chicklets from being killed.

So, I'm not so sure if these first time parents, will accept these hatched chicks and raise them.

As for fosters, it depends how experienced and dedicated they are.