What's wrong with my society finches?

[Icearstorm]

It's my second attempt to breed them, and it doesn't look like anything is going to happen. I think it has been around three weeks since they laid, and none of the eggs have hatched. I removed the egg-eater from the last brood and only one egg disappeared this time (a few days after they were due to hatch). I have been checking the nest the last few days and found that the bottom shells of three eggs were broken off, revealing coagulated yellow yolks beneath. Only one egg looks dark (and may or may not be pipping), while the rest are more yellow or light pink in the inside. All eggs have a fairly large air pocket (started with a small one), indicating they are older. There is always at least one bird in the nest (except for the couple of minutes of nest checks) and everyone eats a parakeet seed mix, eggfood, dark greens, and ground oyster shells with minerals. Should I start the vitamin supplements again? The males mated with the females several times, so the eggs should be fertile. At this rate the gouldians are going to be successful before the society finches, and they haven't even bred yet... What is happening here?
Somewhat unrelated question: my female gouldian has been chirping loudly all day and it's starting to get annoying. Why is she doing this and will she ever shut up?

[Icearstorm]

The one egg I thought was pipping is; today I did a nest check and saw the baby moving its head around inside of the shell. It still doesn't explain what happened to the other seven eggs...

[lovezebs]

Icearstorm

How's the infant, did he hatch today?

[Icearstorm]

lovezebs
It hatched yesterday. I just looked in and saw it crawling under one of the possible parents; it seems a lot more active than the one that got half eaten last month so I hope everything goes well. It looks like I got it right and removed the real murderer so now I just have to hope they feed it.
I don't want them to hurt the baby from flying out in a panic, so I think I'll do the checks when only the sisters are in there. They stay pretty calm and just sit there giving me nasty looks, whereas the chocolates freak and burst out of the nest box. I wonder if it's a mutation trait, or if those two white females just act differently.

[lovezebs]

Icearstorm

Congratulatons!

I really hope all goes well with this little infant

[Icearstorm]

lovezebs
I hope so too! I also hope I'll stop worrying so much after a few days...

[lovezebs]

Icearstorm

Once they start feeding, baby will start begging, and that becomes an on going cycle, until baby get's weaned.

If you don't hear any begging, check on baby.
If crop has some food in it, all is well. If crop has no food, supplement handfeed until he starts begging, at which point parents should begin to feed.

[Icearstorm]

lovezebs
They should start feeding after a day or so, shouldn't they?

[lovezebs]

Icearstorm

For the first day or two, baby can live off his yolk sack.

Some parents begin feeding on day one, others wait for a day or so.
Somewhere around the third or fourth day, you should hear the infant starting to beg, when the parents go into the nest.

When they first begin to feed, baby will look more or less like this.
After avwhile, baby will be a lot fuller.
They grow amazingly fast.

[Icearstorm]

lovezebs
Thank you! I just checked and it looks like it may have a tiny bit of food in its crop. It's also surprisingly downy for a society finch; I wonder why.

[lovezebs]

Icearstorm

If he has a bit of food in his crop then that's very good.

Some Socies have a bit more fuzz than others, no worries.

Make sure parents have egg food and spray millet available, which are usually the first foods used to feed infants.

You are are a Socie Granma, lol.

[Icearstorm]

lovezebs
I think it may have been one of the adults' down feathers sticking to it, because it no longer looks fuzzy. Both spray millet and eggfood are available. Does its crop look full?

[ac12]

Looking good

[Icearstorm]

lovezebs ac12
It seems to have almost doubled in size, but I have yet to hear a peep out of it. It also seemed to be sleeping the whole time (still breathing), even when the adults flew out and I took the nestbox down to take a photo (the good camera has to be a few feet away from its subject). Of course, it's rather difficult to tell if something is sleeping if it can't open its eyes... Either way, it this normal? And should I remove the last of the infertile eggs, or just leave them for a while? The whole nest check and photographing took less than five minutes and the adults went right back to brooding without any complaints.

EDIT
Never mind, I just heard it for the first time; it's ridiculously quiet.

[lovezebs]

Icearstorm

Baby, is looking good, although I'm surprised that only the right side of his crop has food in it.

How old is he now?

You should be starting to see food in both sides of his crop soon.
If he is starting to beg, that's a good sign

Take a look at what super full crops look like, lol....