Missing baby zebra...Did parents bury it?

[Corkysgirl]

My zebra's hatched out a baby zeb, a week later another hatched, the next day, another showed up, and then an egg with a pip hole was very prominent this morning, with three dark eggs remaining. After waking (I sleep crazy hours) at 2pm, I checked the birds and the second born bird is missing. He wasn't very active this morning at all. The egg with the pip hole is no longer there so it must be the new hatchling...I'm sure because the bird missing was larger than what is there. And there are three dark eggs still there. I'm missing a 1 inch long baby finch. If it died do the parents ever bury them? I've always seen them boot them out of the nest. It's not there. I've done some digging under the layers and searched as well as I can without disturbing the rest of them....and it's not been kicked out for sure. I thoroughly checked.

[lovezebs]

Corkysgirl
Just a thought. Do they ever eat their young? Or is there something else in there that might have eaten him?.

[Sally]

I have on a few rare occasions found dead babies when cleaning out nests. They were under the nesting material, so I can only assume the parents buried them. And they were almost mummified. Usually, they toss them instead, as I don't think they want that dead body in with their live babies

[Corkysgirl]

Lovezebs, there would be no way for them to eat it. They have no ripping mechanism and the chicks body was about an inch long. Definitely nothing else got in there. The room is very contained in the house, second floor, internal room. No snakes, no rats, etc, up high, cages on top of cages. The only thing that ever was in my house was a flying squirrel. Not that room.
Sally, I think that must have happened, though I dug down a bunch of layers and didn't see anything (I use ripped paper towels for nesting material). I'm sure I will find it when I clean the nest out after they leave the nest. I've only experienced them tossing them out of the nest too. The father had a clutch before, the mother never did, so it's a mystery. Thanks!

[MiaCarter]

Aw, I'm sorry to hear this.

I had my own case of the missing chick a while back. I searched the entire cage and came to the conclusion that I must have counted incorrectly on the eggs.

I finally found the poor little guy a few days later. The sweet little thing was all dried up on the floor behind the table where the cage is located. Very sad.
I have no idea how they managed this. It seems pretty darn near impossible! But it happened.
So take a peek on the table and the surrounding floor.

I'd also peek in the food dish if you haven't already.

Chances are, he's probably still in the nest, covered up by material.

Or could he be alive and just hidden amidst the others?

[Corkysgirl]

It is sad. I thought of that and searched thoroughly. Their cages are stacked in the middle of the floor. I have cages along one wall but theirs are in the middle and it's very easy to see all around. The bottom of the cage is white with white paper towels. I use them when they have babies in case they toss chicks so I can see them quickly on the white...which I also searched. (They did toss one last night, which I put back hoping it was accidental). The only place it could be is buried under the paper in the nest. I'd see it amongst the two remaining chicks and three eggs. It's very open and easy to see into their nest. It's a mystery. Since I last wrote, two more have hatched so there are now four chicks. One is so much bigger than the three others. Usually they hatch one each day, not a week apart, but then this clutch is the one that has one father that mated with two females. It will be interesting to see how they turn out. This time it's "Who's your mamma?!"

[MiaCarter]

Huh. Must be in the nesting then.
That always worries me when they do that, as I'm afraid the dead baby will cause bacteria that harms the living babies.
I had a hen who never got the hang of babies. She did good until it came time to start feeding them. But she wouldn't toss the dead babies. She'd sit on them. I gave her a bit of time to abandon the nest and toss them, but she never did.
I had to remove the nest and coax her out with a chopstick. That broke my heart a little. She was trying so hard to be a mama; just didn't get it quite right.

I do that too -- put paper towels down to see the tossed chicks better and to create a crash pad of sorts.

My current baby fell out three times -- that was how I first saw him, in fact! I picked him up and was about to put him in a little box in the freezer (I bury all of the babies and the unhatched eggs. I can't bear to throw them in the trash.) I scooped him up to see if he was formed properly and his little mouth opened and I realized he was still alive! Cold but alive! Now he's on day 15/16!

Sounds like yours will be an interesting clutch with such a big age differential. I wonder if the older ones may accidental trample the younger?

That will be interesting to see who's the mama! Can you identify the mama by the age of the babies perhaps?

[Corkysgirl]

I've had some really bad mammas that have tossed their babies, but they were usually first time mammas. Or I've had them toss them when something was wrong with them. I knew it because I would put them in to be fostered by another bird and they would die early on. I don't like the idea of bacteria either but I can't really take them all out of the nest, 4 chicks, and...3 eggs more. I thought it was less eggs than that. They are not newly laid because they are almost ready to hatch...very dark. I will just have to trust they know what they're doing and they buried it deep enough. I looked about an inch or so down. They're in a very deep bamboo nest with at least 4 inches of paper. The large chick is LARGE, and the babies very tiny. He really could squish them. I think he is the chick of the mother that is with him as he has white feathers. Not sure about the others yet, maybe grey because I see a tiny feathering that appears to be grey...so they may come from the other mother and she lay the eggs later. I do think that the difference in size is because two different females lay the eggs. Tomorrow there will probably be a new baby. My husband cringes each time. He's not as enthused as I am about new birds. The parakeet he loves. The finches...not so much! Of course the parakeet says about 80 words so I get it. He was okay at 20, but when they show up 6 at a time...again...and again. He doesn't see the attraction. But he loves me!