Zillion questions about my society finch babies

[HillbillyFinch]

I got them out of nest and every one of them were clinging on with their claws and didn't want to let go so didn't know I was in for a tug o war with all 5. I put the fallen one back in the nest long enough to change the papers so they would have a clean floor and then put them all in the lunch meat container. Well two of them immediately popped out of the container. Mister smarty pants Spike, the first hatched, who was scared to fledge from the high nest is now showing off sitting on a high perch after climbing up the bars of the cage. But he had his momma feeding him, so he doesn't look like a big boy yet. A 2nd one floundered around and made it onto a lower perch. Two others are perched on the rim of the container and preening. The runt is still laying in the container and I think just too young yet to walk around.



Here's daddy Cricket, watching the 2nd fledgling Twiggy testing her legs.

[goldfinchowl]

How r the babies doing?

[HillbillyFinch]

How r the babies doing?

Having all kinds of problems with them. The father finch is intent on making more babies. The mom laid 3 eggs and I have been replacing them with dummy eggs, but she laid another one this morning after I put 6 fakes in. They broke the first one. The father has ripped the tail feathers out of all the kids, the mother and even his own apparently to line the nest. I gave him jute fiber to see if he would stop plucking everyone. He has been eating everyone's downy feathers and now some of the babies have taken up the habit. I am giving them plenty of calcium so I don't understand why they would eat feathers. The mom bird is eating poop off the cage floor. Now two of the kids have bloody peck marks on their cheeks. I caught the two of them appearing to be preening in the cheek area and that's when I noticed the 2nd young one also had marks. So are they fighting or preening too hard? I am thinking of separating the males and females in separate cages to stop the breeding and hopefully that would stop the tail feather plucking, but since they are only 4 weeks old I can't tell their sex yet.

[Sally]

The male probably just wants to start another clutch, so he is using the baby feathers for lining the nest. If he keeps this up, I'd separate him for a while. Mom can continue to fee the babies till they are weaned.

[HillbillyFinch]

Will it be safe to put the father alone in a cage? I have one smaller cage. Otherwise I have a young male zebra in with an old female zebra I could put them with.