Could society finches rear canary chicks?

[Featheredfluffkins]

Assuming the society's were sitting on infertle eggs and I switched them out with newborn canary chicks

[lovezebs]

Featheredfluffkins

Is this a hypothetical question, or is this something that you are considering doing?

Are your Canary parents not feeding?

I have found that Societies will usually raise, if they hatch the eggs, but usually not when you offer chicks. Plus, Canary chicks beg differently from regular finches.

If you have abandoned Canary chicks, I would get out the hand rearing formula, and start feeding them.

[wilkifam]

The MIGHT feed, but canaries beg so differently, I would not count on it.

[Featheredfluffkins]

lovezebs

Some clarification:

I'm a wildlife rehabilitator as well as a finch owner, and over the spring/summer many calls come in for orphaned newborn house sparrows. As baby birds require a TON of work by hand feeding, (as you well know), I had the idea that I could put the young babies under one of my fawn society finches (great breeding pair, but the girl has a tendency to get egg-bound, as she refuses to eat any calcium supplement I give her! Even when I grate it into miniscule pieces in her pellets, I find it at a pile at the bottom of her food dish )

Anyway, I thought that I could counteract her calcium deficiency by giving her babies to raise while not having her laying any more eggs, AND save me lots of time, reducing birdies imprinted on humans, and increasing the survival rate of my baby sparrows, as they are being raised by experienced bird parents.

The reason I said canaries is because canaries are almost exactly the same size as house sparrows, and as this is a pet finch forum, I thought more people would be able to help if I said canaries instead.

Also:
1. I read somewhere that you can "trick" society finches into thinking that their eggs have hatched by removing all but one or two of them, and adding young babies with little bits of sterilized eggshell. Do you think that could work?

2. I'm just worried that the parents could toss the young, or the babies could have a disease that could be transmitted to the parents. What is the possibility of either of these things happening, and do you know of any such diseases that I should worry about?


Thanks so much,
Pearl

[ac12]

You can use liquid calcium in her water.
I usually give mine half a dose of liquid calcium, and let them get the rest of the calcium from egg shells.

If you feed her egg food (chopped hard boiled egg), you could mix the powdered calcium with the egg, it will stick to the egg, so she will get he calcium when she eats the egg. I understand that the birds need something in the egg for them to absorb the calcium anyway.

There is no guarantee with society fosters.
I had one that would toss, so I had to remove him from my foster birds.

[Sheather]

Well in that case, the answer is definitely no.

Sparrows are fed entirely insects for the first week of life. People have tried to raise them under canaries. It fails, because canaries are effectively herbivorous and the diet they feed their young ones isn't able to be digested by the newborn sparrows. Societies are also basically herbivorous, and even if feeding egg food will still be probably feeding too much plant food to their fosters for them to get what they need.

[lovezebs]

Featheredfluffkins

Hi Pearl,

Ok, so we are dealing with baby Sparrows, not Canaries.

Personally, I would not bring any wild birds, Sparrows or otherwise anywhere near your housebirds.

The possibility that they carry some major health issues can be extremely high. It might be something that for Sparrows is nothing, but could very easily kill off your home flock.

So seeing whether they will or won't feed, is a moot point.

If you are housing and caring for any wild birds, I would house them in a different part of the house, and follow the strictest hygiene protocols between the two rooms.

[Featheredfluffkins]

Ok, thanks everyone, that helps so much. Glad I didn't do that!

-Pearl