FEATURE


are not too long. Overgrown claws can drag nesting material from the nest – and chicks along with it. We both inspect our nest-boxes regularly to make sure that all is well, but we stop looking once youngsters have been close rung – and certainly before they are 12 days old. This is to avoid chicks leaving the nest before they are mature enough to do so safely. It is normal for strong, feathered, healthy zebra finch chicks to leave the nest-box and return. Eventually, when they are fully fledged they leave for good. If a hen wants to get on with the next clutch of eggs before the chicks have left the nest- box, we either remove the eggs and foster them to another pair or add an extra nest-box so that the hen and her eggs


Cardboard nest box attached to a breeding cage’


can be in one while the chicks are in the other. You may see the parents start to pluck the feathers out of their youngsters. Primarily, this is to drive them away from the nest, but also can have a secondary purpose – to gather feathers for nesting material. For the past few years we have both used cardboard nest-boxes. In our opinion, these are the finest addition to the range of zebra finch breeding equipment in the recent past. We can list


BIRD SCENE 15


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