Help this noob with inbreed eggs

[GoldPanther]

Hi forum I'm Danny, Thanks so much to the admin team for approving my account!

Long story short, I have a couple of Zebra finches, a regular zebra (male) and a white zebra (female).
They were given to my kids as a gift but obviously its the parents who ends up taking care of the pets, right?
I've had them for about 3 years now and I've learn a lot from they behavior during the time. I had birds when I was a kid so I had an idea of to take proper care of them.

Well, the birds as I will refer to them as the parent birds, have had babies as of now for the third time (just hatched 3 babies), then I still have 4 youngs from the second batch, 2 males and 2 females. The first batch of babies I gave them away, the second batch of babies I have them in a med/large cage but I haven't been able to give them away since I can't find any one to adopt them. I had the parent birds and the young ones all together in the same cage, when the second batch of babies had about 3 months the parents already started having more eggs and then the parents started to fight the babies since they didn't want anyone anywhere close to the nest, so I got a small cage just for the parents so they have privacy and so they stopped fighting the young ones. well, it's been a few months and it turns out that the young ones have already paired up and it seems like they are two couples, they started sleeping in two couples, and now they are fighting over territory. When they were younger I put them a little tray with napkins as a small nest so they could sleep cosy there but it seems that it was terrible idea. one couple turn it into a home sweet home and already laid an egg. I was shoked and didn't know what to do, they are brothers and sisters .... I already tried to remove anything that looks like an nest and anything that they can use as such, I also let them out of the cage for about an hour daily so they don't stress of being inside all the day and nothing seems to work. they are laying eggs all the way from the top branch of the cage and it falls and breaks . What to do, any suggestions as what to do so they stop laying eggs? I feel so horrible for taking them away from them.
Also, I must mention that I tried to tame the young one since they were babies but it didn't work, only one female allows me to grab her and she will jump on my finger, the other three are evil lol.
here's a few pics of said finchs. Also I'm open for any suggestions. TIA

[MariusStegmann]

Danny, they will even lay eggs in the seed-trays. Everyone will tell you that inbreeding is a terrible thing, and should be avoided at all cost. I always try breed non-related birds. But if you try to breed for a certain mutation like for instance pied diamond firetails, then you take your mutation bird, breed it to a healthy bird, then breed the daughter back to the father and then breed the granddaughter back to the father.
All mutations were created by inbreeding. Research has shown that it happens a lot in nature as well.

Inbreeding should be avoided if possible to ensure strong birds. If birds were bought from a petstore, the chances are very high that the birds are related in any case. But, it sounds to me that you have difficulty finding good homes for your babies in any case. In that case I will separate the sexes to ensure no further breeding takes place.

[Fraza]

If I was you Danny I would separate the males from the females and then get all the females a new male and all the males a new female rather this or get rid of all the girls or all the boys as they will never stop breeding as they are very stealthy and if they want to breed they will and they will find a way GoldPanther anyway good luck

[lovezebs]

GoldPanther

It sounds like your Zebras are being Zebras, lol.

Both Zebra Finches and Society Finches, will breed like rabbits, not caring if they are related or not.

You've already had some good advice above.

Removing all nests, removing the eggs as soon as they appear, and seperating the sexes into two different cages...

I will only add the idea of offering them a shorter day.
Cut down on daylight hours by turning off lights earlier, and/or covering the cages with a dark sheet.

Good luck with finding homes for your babies.
You could try some Pet Shops, who may take them.

[GoldPanther]

Thank you guys so much for your replies.
I will take your advise and will separate the females from the males while I find them a new home.
A coworker wants a pair female and male, I told him about the risk of breeding brother and sisters but he insists to have both. I'm not sure if I should give him the couple. He says nothing happens lol. Has anyone had issues breeding siblings?

[Sheather]

We had an accidental mating of society half siblings, in which 3 out of four babies had foot deformities.

[lovezebs]

GoldPanther

Well, siblings and other family members will breed and produce young.

In one generation usually you may not see any issues, however if this practice continues, you will eventually see health issues both physical and mental that will begin cropping up in your lines, which is something you definitely do not want.

[GoldPanther]

Thanks for the advice, honestly I would hate that to happen, I think them having sex is already bad enough to be part of bringing defective birds to this world lol
I'll just give him one for the sake of the nature.

[lovezebs]

GoldPanther

One Finch, is a very unhappy Finch.

I'd ive him 2 males or 2 females, if I were you.

[MariusStegmann]

GoldPantherI have bred almost a 100 society finches in the last 2 year. They are all related. I had only 1 pair. They bred until there were a lot of them. I sold 40 of them and kept 4. One cock and 3 hens. A few weeks ago, I caught out 47 and kept 5. One cock and 3 hens. Subsequently their numbers doubled again. All are healthy and strong birds. But also very much related and inbred to at least the 10th generation. The trick with inbreeding is to start with healthy birds. All defects will be multiplied when you inbreed. I have successfully created a strain of societies where most of the cocks are white and black and all the hens are white and brown. The white hen that you can see was sort of bred by accident.

[GoldPanther]

GoldPanther

One Finch, is a very unhappy Finch.

I'd ive him 2 males or 2 females, if I were you.

That's true, I the first batch of babies I gave one to a friend and she kept it alone, didn't last past the year and it died. Well to be honest is suspect that it was mistreated lol, sad.

[GoldPanther]

GoldPantherI have bred almost a 100 society finches in the last 2 year. They are all related. I had only 1 pair. They bred until there were a lot of them. I sold 40 of them and kept 4. One cock and 3 hens. A few weeks ago, I caught out 47 and kept 5. One cock and 3 hens. Subsequently their numbers doubled again. All are healthy and strong birds. But also very much related and inbred to at least the 10th generation. The trick with inbreeding is to start with healthy birds. All defects will be multiplied when you inbreed. I have successfully created a strain of societies where most of the cocks are white and black and all the hens are white and brown. The white hen that you can see was sort of bred by accident.

Mhm, interesting, thanks for sharing I will keep this in mind. I had to Google what "society finch" meant, I was like wow. Some people really are fanatics and have a lot patience and spend a lot of time on birds. How many types of society finches there are? Or is any mutated finch considered society-finch?
Question? My female finch is white, I'm now wondering if it's a society-finch or a regular type of finch. Also why none of the babies became white like the mom?
My God so many questions lol

[Sheather]

There is no "regular" finch. You have zebra finches - the most common species you come across these days. But there are many more species of finch available.

Society finches and zebra finches are distinct species. Society finches are usually brown with with white markings. They came in different shades and some are all white and some are solid, but the most common is brown and white.

Zebra finches are naturally grey but come in various other varieties, including white. All the other colors are recessive genes, which means you need two of the white finches - or two gray parents who had white parents - to get more white finches. Since you only get gray, it means your gray finch does not have the white gene to pass onto his young and thus the young come out grey.

You have two zebra finches.

[GoldPanther]

Got ya it makes a lot sense, thank clarifying!

[Sheather]

You are welcome.

I also want to mention that your bird cages are very small, especially the top cage, but also the bottom. I would not keep any birds in the little cage for more than a few days on a temporary basis, or to travel. The bottom cage is large enough for two birds at the very most.