patient dear zebras dutifully sitting on plastic eggs

[rayeast]

I had a problem with my male Zebra plucking the feathers feathers from his female partner. My only solution was to get them a bamboo nest and some materials so the male could build and stop hurting the female. (AKA Ernie and Fawn) It worked and the female laid 4 eggs. I live in a small apartment and it would be very difficult to raise new birds. How I wound up with two inevitably going to breed pairs is a long story.
I replaced the eggs in their nest with plastic eggs and now I am wondering What Next? They have been patiently sharing egg sitting for ten days now. ???

[lem2bert]

rayeast

I had the same problem with my canary, only she was plucking herself. I did not want her to breed, but she kept dropping eggs on the bottom of the cage and plucking herself. I put a nest and nest material in the cage and replaced all eggs with plastic eggs. She sat on those eggs for two weeks then abandoned the nest. So far no plucking.

I would just let them sit on them until they abandoned them.

[Icearstorm]

rayeast
When I had three related society finches, I replaced their eggs with clay ones (I had no fake eggs, but did have a container of clay, so I made some). They incubated them for a month before finally giving up.

[rayeast]

Thanks both of you, your advice has been very useful. I'll just wait.

[Shannylee]

rayeast, I agree with the above comments. I let my hens (that I don't want to breed) sit on fake or infertile eggs until they give it up.

[Zebrafincher]

How go the plastic eggs? Have they *hatched* yet?

Zebrafincher

[lem2bert]

Zebrafincher

A little humor keeps me going .