My Zebra Girls

[rkn]

Hi all,

Hey being the newbie finch mom I am I was reading more about zebra finches and in particular the ladies since I gave their male counter parts away to avoid babies.

Ok that being said the 2 girls are sitting on 7 eggs and happily doing this! I don't know if the eggs are fertile or not and am afraid to handle them. But my question, say the eggs are duds, will they just keep laying eggs all the time and sitting on them like these are suppose to hatch or are they smart enough to know the difference between good and bad eggs?

Also will they steal another finches baby or eggs? I do beleive my spice finches have good eggs and are aggressively protecting their nest, But lady finches keep wondering over like they want to take over the spice couple's eggs?

yikes...all this bird mom stuff to learn!

Ideas?

rita

[Sally]

Some birds seem to figure out that there is no need to sit any more, and others will sit faithfully the whole time on infertile eggs. I have a Star hen which I think is old--she would go thru all the motions of helping build a nest, and then sitting tight for weeks on end, and when I would finally check her, she was sitting in an empty nest. I have a feeling that she is so old she can't lay eggs anymore, but she still wants to have babies.

Eventually, your hens will be laying infertile eggs, with no males present. I haven't had Spice finches, but it sounds like yours are quite capable of protecting their nest.

[williep]

They will figure out sooner or later that the eggs are infertile (if they are in fact infertile). But if you have other birds and especially other zebs chances are the females will continue to lay eggs even if the are infertile, kinda like chickens without a cock being present.

As for the spice finches, I never had a pair or any zeb or other bird chase a spice of its nest, mine were very protective and raised a lot of babies even with 4 other species in the aviary

[rkn]

I finally got brave enough to candle the eggs and ALL are duds! I did it this morning after my 2 zebras were acting funny anyways and thought to see if this was part of it. Anyway all eggs are duds which I am glad as i do not want baby zebras.

rkn