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Cut Throat finch (male) sitting on Red Face Parrot finch chick!

Posted: 11 May 2019, 17:09
by ZoeHermans
Hello, I need some help/advice. I have a small ornamental aviary with a mixture of finches. I don’t breed, but I do have a male/female pair of Red Face parrot finches who have successfully just hatched a chick. The chick is currrently around 5 days old. The parents seem to be caring for it, however, today I noticed that my male Cut Throat has been sticky-beaking in the nest and sitting on the chick. I even caught it feeding the chick (or looked that way to me). He hasn’t hurt the chick (as yet). I’m really perplexed at this behaviour. At first I thought he was trying to kill or toss the chick, but he doesn’t seem to be doing this. He seems to be caring for it!

What should I do? Do I remove the cut throat? Do I let them be? Please help. I can’t find any info online that sheds light on this behaviour (only that cut throats can be aggressive when breeding, but he isn’t breeding - he has no hen - and he isn’t being aggressive I don’t think). Help!

Re: Cut Throat finch (male) sitting on Red Face Parrot finch chick!

Posted: 11 May 2019, 17:48
by Tiaris
Cutthroats are regular nest intruders. They will often go into other finches' nests & sometimes eject the original inhabitants. If he is feeding the young PF then that's encouraging that he won't cause harm in this case, but generally I would recommend against housing Cutthroats in most mixed species finch breeding aviaries due to their propensity to take over the nests of other finches.

Re: Cut Throat finch (male) sitting on Red Face Parrot finch chick!

Posted: 11 May 2019, 20:04
by finchbreeder
I have no experience with cutthroats. But he may just be a frustrated Papa if he if feeding and caring for the young one.
LML

Re: Cut Throat finch (male) sitting on Red Face Parrot finch chick!

Posted: 14 May 2019, 21:23
by ZoeHermans
Thanks for your replies. The cutthroat is still caring for baby; day 8 and chick still alive, so it’s looking good 😀