FEATURE
Ideally, zebra finch chicks should leave the nest when they are fully feathered but, once again, parents keen to get on with the next round can upset proceedings.
often over anxious to get on with producing the next round of chicks and are not as attentive as they might be to their nesting duties.
Another thing to look out for when making inspections is a dirty nest. These can be caused by the soft food that is being offered. Sometimes too much egg food is the problem and cutting back the supply can do the trick. In our experience, a particular brand of egg food has caused dirty boxes in one bird room but not in another. Once you find a brand that suits your birds, stick with it. Dirty nests should be cleaned out or the nest-box can be replaced. At around seven days it is time to start checking whether a chick’s legs are large enough to be ringed with an official Zebra Finch Society closed coded ring – without the ring falling off again. It is impossible to be precise about a ringing age as even chicks of the same variety in the same nest can differ. Some varieties tend to be ready for ringing earlier than others. For example, as a general rule we would expect to ring Normals and Fawns at a younger age than Penguins or the non- standard varieties. Once chicks have been rung we
stop the daily nest-box inspections. This is because the disturbance can cause chicks to leave the nest-box prematurely, before they are capable of finding their own way back. This is when having chicks of different ages in the same nest-box can cause problems. The older ones leave the box and return at will whereas the younger ones follow them and finish up spending the night on the cage floor if not detected. Ideally, zebra finch chicks should leave the nest when they are fully feathered but, once again, parents keen to get on with the next round can upset proceedings. They throw the chicks out of the nest-box and drive them away. This is when feather plucking of chicks can occur. Plucking is not always rejection behaviour. It can also be a way of collecting nesting material – as demonstrated when parent birds pluck each other. Whatever the cause, feather plucking is undesirable. One way of coping with the problem of ejected chicks is to provide a second nest-box. More often than not, the cock and the rejected chicks will occupy one, while the hen gets on with laying eggs in another. An advantage of this approach is that
BIRD SCENE 25
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