FINCHforum

I am here from time to time. We have an aviary at work that I take care of. This week we have had three baby Zebras come out of the nest. One came first, and I was quite surprised at its size. To be honest we did not know there were even babies in the nest. The front of the nest was built up to just basically a peep hole. Momma bird sat there for a few weeks, but has vacated so I assumed she had been sitting on empty eggs. Well, a little one was on the floor of the aviary Monday. Wednesday when I was cleaning I decided to try and clean up the nest and make a larger entrance way. To my surprise two more came out. These birds had been in the nest so long their beaks were already beginning to turn from the black they are born with, so I know they had been in the nest quite a while. These three are now huddled up on the aviary floor. Mom is still feeding but they will also hop over to the feeder/water and help themselves. I have seen both the white ones fly horizontally across the aviary and one of them is fluttering up and down like it may be getting the idea. One isn't really doing much but hopping. They look good and healthy, and although I know they are go horizontally, vertically is a challenge for them. We are hoping their wings just aren't strong yet from being cooped up in the nest for longer than normal. Could they have actually gotten trapped in the nest? Never had this issue before. I have since took that nest down completely.

I've never heard of this situation before. The babies should gradually develop stronger muscles and will then be able to fly well both vertically and horizontally.

Hi there,

Chances are the baby birds are under nourished baring in mind that you had no actual intension of breeding them and didn't realise they were in the nest for some time,

You were probably just feeding the std diet that you'd feed the adult birds which is obviously fine but not knowing you had babies from the start you obviously weren't prepared to feed any form of prepared egg food n soak seed etc,

I've als seen this with border canaries here in the uk where as soon as they've left the nest, they can't maintain there body weight, can't fly and basically flop to the cage floor,

To me straight away I'd definitely say it's a lack of nutrition and most probably calcium