Help please with zebs?

[ragamuffin]

So yesterday I came home to discover our zebs had indeed hit breeding age and laid an egg. From their perch that they sleep on at the top of the cage. So after cleaning up Humpty I went to the pet store, bought a wicker nest and some nesting material, put a little nesting material in the nest and a little more in their cage and thought they'd go about their business again just in the right place.

Wrong. I guess I'm showing how new to finches I am when I say I am devastated to come home again today and find another egg also splattered on the bottom of the cage in the exact same spot.

I guess what I'm asking is, how can I teach the finches to use the nest? Is it just a matter of time? I've taken some perches out and moved their night one down a bit incase they insist on not using the nest, at least the next egg won't fall so far. If they don't know what the nest is for are they going to know that they're meant to sit on the eggs?

Any help would be good, I'm rather attached to my little ones and it's a little upsetting coming home and seeing omelettes in the cage.

Cheers all.

Amanda

[Redwing]

All you need to do at this stage is sit back and be patient. One of them is obviously ready to lay eggs but there is a lot more to breeding successfully than that... you don't really even know for sure that you have a pair yet.

[elferoz777]

you could have a pair of hens..

I think you should just relax and enjoy them.

They will breed when they are ready.

At that point instinct will kick in the nest will be built in two days....

Then in three months time you will have 100 zebs...you will be at the point you fish they would stop..

[ragamuffin]

Ok, thanks. Just being new to it all I was a bit upset and wondered if there was anything I should be doing as such. We actually hadn't intended on giving them a nest (in the hopes of delaying breeding a little while) until December, but figured when the eggs started appearing that perhaps they just weren't going to wait for us to be ready for them.

They seem to be going okay, we got another egg today and this one survived it's little tumble from a lower perch to a container with nesting material, so I guess given some time they'll either sit on it or they won't, and it'll either hatch or it won't.

Thanks for your patience, I know it's probably a mix of frustrating and a little amusing for people that have been looking after finches, or any birds for that matter, to get the panicked questions from new kids out there.

Cheers
Amanda

[Diane]

to get the panicked questions from new kids out there.

At one time we all were those people! Only way to learn is to ask.

[elferoz777]

thats it

I got shot down a few times asking questions but there were some willing to share their knowledge and that got me through.

Last year I could not breed a gouldian to save my life

I asked about putting nesting material in the nest box which is the equivalent of asking if finches eat seed....now all of a sudden I have 7 young in the aviary and two other pairs on nests.All thanks to some good advice.

[finchbreeder]

Young birds are like teenage parents. Sometimes they get it right from the start and sometimes they struggle. Most will lay their first egg in a nest, but I know a budgie breeder who this season has a hen who has laid 10 eggs over 3 months and everyone has been laid on the floor. 3 chicks have survived successful fostering and 2 eggs are still possibly going to hatch.
LML

[ragamuffin]

Young birds are like teenage parents.

Oh dear, there could end up being some rather messed up little finches in that case! I like the idea though, and I was wondering if perhaps they were just too young to know that after part a there had to be a part b.

We had three eggs in a row, the last one survived the fall, but they didn't end up sitting. We've since removed that egg and it felt a little waxy, so I'm guessing she just hadn't helped herself to enough of the shell grit in the seed dishes. They still wouldn't go anywhere near the wicker nest we put in for them, so we've taken that out too and replaced it with a smaller one and also an open (canary?) one just to given them some more options. They had started playing with the nesting material we had put in there for them, so hopefully next time they'll get the right idea.

[Diane]

Try putting a group of nests together with some starter grass and feathers already inside and drape some grass and feathers around the nests, it may encourage them to either lay in the ready to move into nests or possibly even build their own inbetween the others. Ive had birds do that.