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FEATURE


it ever so slight, to keep an eye on the pairings until they have settled. Another area which is not an exact science is the time between an egg being laid and hatching. Although the accepted time for the incubation period of a Zebra finch egg is supposed to be 14 days, there are exceptions. Occasionally, one will hatch after only 13 days and, if a hen does not begin incubating from the first egg, it can take a day or two longer. Do not discard fertile eggs just because they have not hatched when a book states that they should have done. We begin feeding slightly dampened softfood to breeding pairs 14 days after the first egg was laid – regardless of hatching or non hatching – and then continue on a daily basis. Softfood that is too wet causes messy parents, chicks and nestboxes and is more likely to turn sour. We stopped feeding bread and milk for this reason and now use one of the good propriety softfoods that are advertised in Cage and Aviary Birds.


Because Zebra finch hens lay eggs on successive days, you can usually expect a chick to hatch every day if the hen sat from the first egg. So with a fair number of eggs in a clutch it is possible to end up with quite a range of chick sizes in the same nestbox. If we feel there is a risk of the youngest chick being squashed


or neglected we transfer that chick to a nest that contains chicks nearer its own size. Again do not be too anxious or you will finish up with chicks fostered all around the birdroom and – although you can take the precaution of moving the chick to a pair with different coloured youngsters- too much movement can make accurate important record keeping more difficult than it needs to be.


The other time we tend to foster chicks is when there is only one in the nest. Hens seem to feed better when they have a few chicks demanding food, whereas those with only one to look after can become lazy. Anyone who thinks that a single chick, that gets all the attention, will develop more quickly than one in a nest of four has never bred Zebra finches. The other advantage of taking a singleton from the hen is that it lets her get back to producing what will, hopefully, be a full fertile clutch the next time around. The main reason for the nestbox inspections – which are carried out every day once a chick has hatched – is to check that chicks are being properly fed. So we inspect boxes in the evening rather than early in the day before proper feeding has begun. It is not easy to decide what to do about a hen that appears not to be feeding her chicks properly. If you panic, you can finish up with more


BIRD SCENE 19


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