Remove nest or put in fake eggs to prevent further breeding?

[RoisinL]

Hi all,

I'm wondering which you consider best to prevent breeding. I have four society finches, and they had their first clutch. There are two babies, who appear to be healthy and should be fledging soon. As much as I'd love more, my cage is only so big. I purchased fake eggs. Should I put the eggs in the nest when they fledge, or just remove the nest altogether? Also, when should I? I read about 48 hrs after last fledging leaves the nest....is this correct.

Thanks again for any help you can provide. It has been so fun watching these little guys grow. I will post pictures once I can get a better view!

[Sheather]

You can take out the nest and they'll survive but mine frantically spend all their time trying to build nests on the perches when I don't have a nest available to them and it's pretty sad. If they have no nesting material they'll try their hardest to get molted feathers to stick to the branches, and they'll keep putting them back all day long. They're obviously more comfortable with a nest, but they will absolutely breed if you give one too. Fake eggs will keep them busy and probably more content.

[Dave]

RoisinL, I like the fake egg plan, as per Sheather. It allows the bird to go through a normal cycle (except feeding chicks). They'll be less frantic and lay less eggs. That makes nutrition easier, too.

[Babs _Owner]

RoisinL

My society hens will sit on fake eggs and not lay anymore for like FOREVER! Fake eggs is the way to go, they seem exhausted when they perch sleep.

The longest Ive had a hen sit on fake eggs without giving up is about 2 1/2 months.

[haroun]

RoisinL
about nest removing , we remove it 48 h after the third fledged chick, i hate to put fake eggs .
Apparently when the mate is incubating they do not sleep at night and during that 13-day period which is very tiring, on the other hand it is enough to remove the nest and to break the hung eggs, the female will stop laying once the Ovary cluster is consumed.Laying eggs is an ordinary step on the life for a hen but incubating eggs is a very difficult step for the mate on breeding so do it on fake !!

[Babs _Owner]

haroun

Societies alternate sitting duties. Some evenings its the male, some its the female. They dont sleep while sitting at night?

I've never heard of that. Got anywhere I can research that some more?

[Sheather]

I have a trio, sitting on eggs right now. They alternate in shifts throuh the day, usually the females work together and the male sits alone. All birds sit in the nest at night. I can affirm, they sleep while sitting - heads flopped or behind their wings.

[Sojourner]

Remove the nest and do not put it back. If your hen goes into a cycle of egg-laying and all else fails - keeping them cool, covering the cage at dusk, removing anything even REMOTELY nest-like such as medium to large size feed cups, putting them on an austerity diet - then you can put a nest back in and use the fake eggs.

They sleep JUST FINE on a perch or (in my guys' case, more often than not due to Bambi's initial inability to fly when I first got him) in the bottom of the cage. You can also get a little shelf-like thing and put that in and they can sleep on that all cuddled up without it actually being a nest. However I wouldn't put it past my guys to try to use that as a nest anyway. I'm good with perches and nothing even remotely nest-like, and so are my guys.

Having the fake eggs on hand is super smart on your part. I wish I had thought to do that. Instead what I ended up doing when my hen started laying again after moving her from my son's house to here was I put the nest in intending to order the fake eggs right away - and then fell into one of my "drifty" periods where time has no meaning.

They have now been sitting those eggs long enough that they are either duds or they're going to hatch any day now. I'm rooting for duds.

[Babs _Owner]

Sheather

Thanks! I got worried for a second!

[Babs _Owner]

Sojourner

Oh boy! Baby time! *giggle Rarely such a thing as society "duds".! haha!

[RoisinL]

Thanks so much for all the helpful information. I think I will wait until they fledge, and then give the fake eggs a try!! I noticed that all four of my original finches took turns sitting on the eggs, so hopefully this will continue with the fake eggs.

[Sojourner]

Babs

Please the powers that be, no babies! Whatever would I do with them? Seems like they should have hatched by now so I'm still hopeful they are duds.

Last time I disturbed a nest the eggs disappeared so I'm not trying that again. I don't want babies but once they've developed this far I'm way to squeamish to discard the eggs.

My next order out will include fake eggs. Putting a nest in the cage is the absolute last resort - sitting eggs takes up energy that could be better put to use flitting about. Egg laying is stressful enough on its own. Sitting eggs just exacerbates the problem. Which is fine if you are breeding on purpose, but not good for birds you don't want to breed.

I only have the 2 birds. Maybe if there were 4 or 6, only one at a time would have to be in the nest and the rest could play at least part of the time. But with just the 2, they never really have any fun any more. They are clearly tired and at odds.

[Sheather]

And with my birds it's always seemed like societies just live to sit on eggs. If they can't, they do everything in their power to try to make a nest, lay some eggs, and incubate them. I too would have thought they'd be happier without a nest so they could fly and do what they wanted but nesting really is the purpose of their lives and with no ability to do that, they either seem totally lost or very bored.

[Sojourner]

Mine are just fine - as long as I can keep the hen from dropping eggs. Exposing your birds unnecessarily to the hazards of laying eggs is not cute. They are perfectly happy without babies. And much healthier and more active and cheerful. Spending weeks sitting a nest just isn't necessary and everything possible should be done for your birds NOT to end up having to do that. (People who breed on purpose for a reason excepted)

Honestly when my mother was breeding birds they just did not breed this easily. I suspect because with the exception of Bengalese/Societies - which do not occur naturally in the wild - they were all wild-caught birds, back when that was still cheap and legal.

[Sheather]

That's fine, we do whatever we feel is best for our birds. I tend to go with if the birds want to do something, let them do it. My finches aren't fun to watch when I've taken all nests out, they're intermittently frantic or totally apathetic. When the nest comes back it's singing, mating, making that nest just right with papers and grass, they seem to sleep much better. Finches don't play with toys. In a cage they don't have much to occupy them. When I had finches in an aviary situation, at a glance it did look like they were happy just flying around but if you looked the males were really just on a constant search for any little scrap of something to try to start a nest with. If I dropped some paper strips in there it was absolute mayhem with the birds taking them and fighting over them and trying so hard to get them to stick on the branches. I don't think it's inhumane to not give nests to society finches but I do see that they're much calmer with a nest. This doesn't really translate even to other species; zebras like nests for example, but I did not see any of the frantic need to have one in them like I saw in my societies.

I did notice they sleep better on perches in big groups snuggled together, whereas pairs or trios seem to sleep very unsoundly and wake up at every little sound throughout the night. The nest definitely provides security, which is especially prudent right now because I have a cat who would not let them get any privacy at night if they didn't have a nest basket to hide in to sleep.