Zebra finch chicks! Fawn chick?

[stargazerwolf]

I finally have zebra finch chicks again! I kind of gave up for awhile. I just put all 4 females and 1 male in a large cage and a nest and let them be. The male picked his mate, but eggs never seemed fertile. I quit checking and then I checked last week and sure enough 4 chicks! The funny thing is, it seems that 2 females who he didn't seem paired with, are taking care of the eggs and chicks. I watched for a few days and they started chasing one female, I took her out. I never saw the mate of the male going in the nest nor the male going in there.

Before I found the chicks though, I had removed the male because he never went in and I decided that since some eggs looked fertile, but hadn't hatched, and it had been a couple weeks, that they were dead. I figured I'd wait for them to get tired of the eggs and then wouldn't have to worry about more being laid if I took the male out. I decided I wanted to just keep him with one female. He is a pied fawn and I put him with the fawn female that was being chased. I originally wanted them together anyway. So after all that, I discovered the chicks and the two hens keep caring for them. The hens caring for the chicks are a normal grey and a pied grey so I could end up with fawn females, pied fawn females, and normal greys. Upon looking at the chicks, I think one might be fawn, it is still pink while the others are grey, its wings though not feathered yet, look lighter like a fawn color. Do fawn chicks have pink skin? I honestly can't remember.

[lovezebs]

stargazerwolf

It's pretty hard to tell from the picture. He appears to be lighter than the others, but difficult to figure out what mutation he'll turn out to be at this stage.

Give it a little more time...