Finch Etiquette

[jlt1960]

I would like to separate my hen and cock after this last clutch to give her a break from spitting out all these eggs but they seem so attached I can't bring myself to do it. The most I've done so far is remove the nest but she lays the eggs in the food tray. If separated, I would put the dad with their one son who is in first molt and getting colors and the hen with their 3 other children, which are hens and also part of the first clutch of 4. Should the parents get along with their offspring if I decide to do this? Eventually I would like to have one flight aviary with all males and one for all females as this nest drama is killing me! Thanks everyone!

[wilkifam]

I put my birds into same sex flight cages when not breeding. Everyone does fine.

[Flight Feathers]

I prefer not to seperate pairs but to prevent laying, you can get special feeders that attach on the outside of the cage and just remove anything they can lay in. The female may lay on the floor every now and again but they won’t incubate them on the ground and she shouldn’t lay many on the ground. I have to stop my pairs from breeding in between clutches so they get a break. Bur after removing so many eggs and after a few weeks break I put a nest back in and let them nest again.

[Flight Feathers]

One flight with males and one flight with females should be fine. I prefer to leave my pairs together tho obviously as I breed them.

[haroun]

after breeding season , i separate both sex , each gender on each aviary ,same for juveniles when they start to get their colors ,you should break the sibling preening . actually the aviaries are not so far each other we say some feet far and every one can hear and see the other one, believe me there is no eggs except those in the nests of corse in the breeding boxes .

One flight with males and one flight with females should be fine. I prefer to leave my pairs together tho obviously as I breed them.

this is one of the causes that you have plenty of pied especial on your BF ,and splitters for OB, you should make a selective program

[Flight Feathers]

after breeding season , i separate both sex , each gender on each aviary ,same for juveniles when they start to get their colors ,you should break the sibling preening . actually the aviaries are not so far each other we say some feet far and every one can hear and see the other one, believe me there is no eggs except those in the nests of corse in the breeding boxes .

One flight with males and one flight with females should be fine. I prefer to leave my pairs together tho obviously as I breed them.

this is one of the causes that you have plenty of pied especial on your BF ,and splitters for OB, you should make a selective program

I have my birds already paired up tho so they don’t split pairs. As for the pied gene, ALL of my birds are pied! I did specifically pair up what I thought to be ob splits but for some reason what I had thought to be an ob split may actually be a B.B. split. I’m not trying to breed rare Zebs anymore tho as my bf is absolutely hopeless (has ditched at least 4 or so clutches and refuses to incubate for more than a couple days) So that pair isn’t working. And for breeding other rare colors I would have to have so many Zebs that I decided it wasn’t worth it and I would like to try some different birds.

[haroun]

after breeding season , i separate both sex , each gender on each aviary ,same for juveniles when they start to get their colors ,you should break the sibling preening . actually the aviaries are not so far each other we say some feet far and every one can hear and see the other one, believe me there is no eggs except those in the nests of corse in the breeding boxes .

One flight with males and one flight with females should be fine. I prefer to leave my pairs together tho obviously as I breed them.

this is one of the causes that you have plenty of pied especial on your BF ,and splitters for OB, you should make a selective program

I have my birds already paired up tho so they don’t split pairs. As for the pied gene, ALL of my birds are pied! I did specifically pair up what I thought to be ob splits but for some reason what I had thought to be an ob split may actually be a B.B. split. I’m not trying to breed rare Zebs anymore tho as my bf is absolutely hopeless (has ditched at least 4 or so clutches and refuses to incubate for more than a couple days) So that pair isn’t working. And for breeding other rare colors I would have to have so many Zebs that I decided it wasn’t worth it and I would like to try some different birds.

zebra are not so faithful to their mates , u can broke and readjust mates as u want to select , as u can see there is no more pied or cfw on my flocks any new chicks will be removed .
for ur BF is he a one year old aged , give him a rest and for few months and mate him to a new hen (pure regular grey ) .
and for breeding to much rare color; it's not necessary to have so many zebs
you can start from one or two birds
fe
BCs : i start with a juvenile BC male on 2013-2014.and till 2015 TO fInd him a fawn BC , so the first year was only for producing split ; even this hen give me a clutch and passed away
FAWN Cheek : the patriarch is still alive
Isabels : i start with a female 2014 witch i lost few months later but i got splits from.
BB with a lonely male witch turn to be infertile so i lost two years, this autumn i got the BB/OB male i worked to get splits from him, in December i got a bb ob fawn hen and also found a bb ob male witch was ill.
i try to combine different tests i do not expect any special mutation and my goal was to have the best split specimen (bb,ob,isabel ) for next year but results are here.

[Flight Feathers]

after breeding season , i separate both sex , each gender on each aviary ,same for juveniles when they start to get their colors ,you should break the sibling preening . actually the aviaries are not so far each other we say some feet far and every one can hear and see the other one, believe me there is no eggs except those in the nests of corse in the breeding boxes .

this is one of the causes that you have plenty of pied especial on your BF ,and splitters for OB, you should make a selective program

I have my birds already paired up tho so they don’t split pairs. As for the pied gene, ALL of my birds are pied! I did specifically pair up what I thought to be ob splits but for some reason what I had thought to be an ob split may actually be a B.B. split. I’m not trying to breed rare Zebs anymore tho as my bf is absolutely hopeless (has ditched at least 4 or so clutches and refuses to incubate for more than a couple days) So that pair isn’t working. And for breeding other rare colors I would have to have so many Zebs that I decided it wasn’t worth it and I would like to try some different birds.

zebra are not so faithful to their mates , u can broke and readjust mates as u want to select , as u can see there is no more pied or cfw on my flocks any new chicks will be removed .
for ur BF is he a one year old aged , give him a rest and for few months and mate him to a new hen (pure regular grey ) .
and for breeding to much rare color; it's not necessary to have so many zebs
you can start from one or two birds
fe
BCs : i start with a juvenile BC male on 2013-2014.and till 2015 TO fInd him a fawn BC , so the first year was only for producing split ; even this hen give me a clutch and passed away
FAWN Cheek : the patriarch is still alive
Isabels : i start with a female 2014 witch i lost few months later but i got splits from.
BB with a lonely male witch turn to be infertile so i lost two years, this autumn i got the BB/OB male i worked to get splits from him, in December i got a bb ob fawn hen and also found a bb ob male witch was ill.
i try to combine different tests i do not expect any special mutation and my goal was to have the best split specimen (bb,ob,isabel ) for next year but results are here.[/quote]

Problem is that the only Zebs I have access to are Pieds or pied splits really and I only want to have 3 pair of Zebs. Which I already have and I couldn’t really part with any of them. I have got my amazing fawn hen, Breeze (split pied) and she is the most amazing mother when it comes to raising babies. And I’ve got her mate, Cirrus who is a cfw split pied (I think) and he has a very thin tear mark, as does Breeze. But I don’t think they are both ob splits. And then I’ve got my black face, nimbus and cfw pied hen, rain. Rain is good at sitting too but she had to incubate eggs by herself and nimbus refuses to sit on eggs and he doesn’t look after his babies either. At the moment rain has six eggs and upon cancelling only one proved fertile (she has been sitting for a little while) You could see it’s heart beating which was pretty cool. I’m going to give the egg to another pair once they start sitting as rain won’t be able to incubate it on her own. My third pair is a fawn hen I specially brought from a breeder because her father was a huge British zebra so I figured she would be able to give me a reasonably good sized babies. And her mate will be my normal split ob that is breeze and cirrus son. He is still a fledgling tho. I also have a fourth pair which are going to their new home soon. I don’t want any more Zebs as I get sick of babies getting ditched etc when it comes to nimbus and they can annoy each other. I’d rather go into bengalese and other birds like maybe some more canaries and also red polls would be nice.

[Sojourner]

I have Bengalese (Societies).

My original pair turned out to BOTH be female, yet one of them laid eggs anyway and in fact eventually died of egg-binding.

The things that worked for me to get them to stop laying were:

First remove anything large enough for them to perch in. I have only thumb cups (about the size and shape of your thumb) which you can't get any more sadly, and some narrow shallow feed cups, and a gravity feeder. So small feed cups they can't perch in. And no nests of course. My guys would roost or cuddle in the bottom of the cage (a habit they developed because Bambi is a Tail-less wonder who didn't know how to fly when I got him because he'd been kept in one of those 12" cages for so long). They were fine with that.

Then briefly the following year Pye (the white hen) started laying but I got that stopped by moving the cage to a cooler spot and covering it from dusk to dawn.

Then Pye started laying like crazy - like 30 or 40 eggs in a couple of months, and I did let her sit them after awhile because I thought maybe THAT would stop her. Nothing seemed to work. Turned out she had a brain tumor and that was probably the cause of her incessant egg-laying. It was all pretty horrible.

But even in the absence of brain tumors sometimes hens will lay even in an all-female cage. So personally I don't see a lot of value in breaking up pairs that way if you can help it. I would try removing anything she's tried to lay an egg in and get smaller feed cups for treats and a gravity feeder for their staple seed (and water tubes). And watch the temp and day-length.

In the absence of an actual brain tumor, that should normally take care of the issue. If they lay the odd egg here and there just discard it.

If you don't want to breed any more, putting all 6 birds in a large flight cage (with nothing in it big enough to lay an egg in) might result in a shift in pairing, but they are happier in a flock. But since I think I read that some of these birds are related, you would have to be diligent about tossing any eggs that show up from time to time.

I have to admit, until I found out that Pye had a brain tumor, I was feeling VERY reluctant to even consider getting another bird for my surviving male, since you can't tell by looking I was afraid to end up with a female and more unwanted eggs. I'm still a little hesitant. But until she got the brain tumor I managed to avoid anything more than a few eggs being laid. Once I figured out I needed to keep them cooler and on a natural day-night cycle (instead of exposing them to lights-on until I went to bed at 10 or 11 PM), there were no more eggs laid despite mating flights, until she got the brain tumor.

Keep in mind, with societies you can't tell the gender by just looking at them, unlike Zebras.