a few questions on fledgling zebra finches?

[apachetear]

I believe you cant tell what the gender of a zebra finch is until it gets its adult colours. Would you be able to tell by when and if it starts to try and sing?
if this is a possible indicator when should i expect to see the fledgling copy its dadddy trying to sing?

also when should he be separated from his parents, to my knowledge i think its once he's started eating by himself and got his adult colours, but i'm not 100% sure , so could do with confirmation?

thanks in advance =)

also slightly off topic, my little finch family appears to have sorted itself out now, the daddy, apache, absolutely adores the little fledgling which we have now named twiggy, those 2 got off to a rocky start with apache not happy with twiggy being there but a day or so after taking the nest out they were inseparable. twiggy follows him everywhere, and apache seems to have taken up most of the feeding for twiggy. Mummy tear appears to be ok though very protective of twiggy getting cross when anyone dares approach the cage. She's always been a worrier though, bless her, rather like myself really!
Twiggy has taken after his daddy and seems to have quite a bit of trust for us at the moment, we put our hand in to give the cage a clean and he wont leave my hand or arm alone, he seems to find it rather entertaining!
thanks for everyones help and advice with my funny little family of finches so far =)

[dingal2000]

I believe you cant tell what the gender of a zebra finch is until it gets its adult colours. Would you be able to tell by when and if it starts to try and sing?
if this is a possible indicator when should i expect to see the fledgling copy its dadddy trying to sing?

also when should he be separated from his parents, to my knowledge i think its once he's started eating by himself and got his adult colours, but i'm not 100% sure , so could do with confirmation?

You cant really tell sex until slightly older, unless more ob signs are there, Like teardrop markings, or cheek patches, you cant tell by the colour of the beak until they are older and lost the blackness, Teardrops would indicate likelyhood of a female, as cheek patches more towards a Male, but this in not 100% if the beak were red, or orange, you noramlly find the male is darker in the beak than the female, so you so be able to make a better than good guess as to whats a cock or hen. you could easy move the little ones. from about 35 days on but i`d rec about 41 days.

Others may have a different view, but thats my advise

[lovemyfinch]

Actually I just checked on my zebras, and all my males have cheek patches AND teardrops. The way that I could tell if they were male or female (except for the whites) was by the little breastbars peeking through. Otherwise for the whites I waited until the colour came out in their beaks.

[ac12]

If you see and hear one "trying" to sing, you likely have a male. In the beginning it is hard to recognize it as singing as it is so scratchy.

[Nagdabit]

We have noted on the occasional very young male that you can hear a certain vibrato early on in their begging sounds that they make while still being fed by the parents. The wife calls it their "beat box". In most instances we can't even identify which baby is making the noise, but you sure can hear it coming from the nest.

I think part of the confusion regarding teardrop markings being sex specific is the Florida Fancy mutation. If you check out this reference from Efinch, the Florida Fancy mutation suppresses all black markings.

http://www.efinch.com/species/ffzeb.htm

On CFW males the teardrops don't necessarily always stand out either. As Mr. Beckham explained on Efinch, CFW's do have the black markings, but in most cases all of their coloration is usually washed out to some degree.

http://www.efinch.com/species/cfwzeb.htm

Basically it sounds to me since both birds start with a basic white body that pet store employees can easily get the FF and CFW guidelines confused and try to use these features to identify the sex of the birds.

Solid White Zebra Finches complicate things even further, as these birds are very difficult to visually sex. As someone mentioned earlier beak color is the best (but not always 100 % accurate) means.

Once again note Roy's description of this mutation. http://www.efinch.com/species/whitzeb.htm

Another problem could be that with the males cheek patches, the teardrop markings can get lost, as most people focus on the brilliant rust color (or black, gray, and what have you)

Again this is merely a theory. Oh and don't forget pieds. They can throw all accepted teaching right out the window since they can be very difficult to guess as to what markings they will retain.

To really make your head spin around the other way, black cheeks can screw with teardrop markings as well, although they can make them more predominate. A finch that is split to black cheek can carry visual indicators in the form of a faint widening of the teardrop marking.

[apachetear]

Thanks for all your replies. At the moment we're thinking it's possible it's a boy , the colour on its beak is changing and is looking very dark red, but its only slight colour.
At the moment he's started eating by himself. The problem is thats only when he can be bothered, he still begs most of the time, the parents usually refuse, they rarely give in, only when he's very noisy do they feed him. He's 35 days old now and am wondering would it be safe for him to be moved in a few days. We think it would be best as the parents have had enough the past few days and have started plucking his feathers, however we not certain what to do.
When would you recommend separating them? I want to make sure he's old enough to take care of himself.
Thanks in advance =)

[lovemyfinch]

Once you see that he is drinking on his own as well as eating, you can separate him. The parents are probably plucking him because they are wanting to start a new clutch.

[apachetear]

Thanks for your reply. I haven't seen him drinking yet, but i can't watch him all the time so he could have done while i wasn't looking, couldn't he? I think the parents do want to start a new clutch, i heard the dad hiss at poor young little Twiggy today. Bless him, Twiggy just sits there and takes it.

[apachetear]

The feather plucking situation is very bad today, he is literally bald on both sides, and both the parents keep chasing him, hissing at him and pecking him, but i haven't seen him drink yet. He begs alot for food, but does eat himself alot of the time, any ideas of what i can do? Is it too early to separate him? He's 36 days old i think. Its only been the last few days that they've been like this towards him.

[lovemyfinch]

This hasn't happened to me "yet", but I am going to go out on a limb here - until someone else chimes in", separate the baby with one of his parents and leave the other parent on it's own (I would try to keep him with the mom)... Hopefully this will slow down the hormones and baby can be weaned without becoming completely bald.

[Nagdabit]

Do you still have a nest in the cage? I'd try removing that temporarily and see if it puts a kibosh on the whole hormone thing for a while.

We've had to separate couples in the past as well. If a hen wants to start another clutch, she views the baby as an intruder, no matter what the stage of development. No nest, no place to lays eggs and start another clutch. Might be worth a try

[GOULDYGIRL]

JMO, but I don't think you have to much time to play around. If the baby is being plucked like that I'd remove one of the parents or if you can, place him by himself and see keep a very close eye and make sure he's drinking.

If that was my baby, that's what I'd do. I've had a male kill one of the babies because I didn't remove them in time, not saying yours will, but it's a possibility. When a pair are determined to breed removing the nest doesn't usually help. Especially, if they are already in the mode.

JMO, and Good luck!
Renee

[ac12]

I would separate the chick from whichever parent is plucking it, father or mother. And keep an eye on it. You may have to separate the bird you remove into another room, until they stop calling for each other, or the one with the chick may not feed the chick.

I have found my females to be the most aggressive to the chicks, the males have been quite good...so far.

Although for 2 of the chicks I think it was/is because they are pied, the mothers just did not accept them. She fed them but also hissed and chased them.

For my first pair, once the chicks were weaned, I removed them to keep them from being chased by their mother. She very aggressively chased them, but not to the point of plucking.

On my last pair, I had to separate the mother and father, cuz mom would chase and not feed the pied chick. Dad now has the pied chick and he is feeding it. I probably should have done that with my first pair as well.