Aussie Finch Forum

The pair laid their second egg three days ago so I'm guessing no more eggs for this clutch. But they only incubate at night never at day time anymore, even if they can't see me when I'm peeking through my lounge room window.
will the eggs hatch
Cheers Mike

Sometimes there is a 2 to 3 day gap between eggs...otherwise they may decide to incubate in next day or two...or if there has been too much interference (fingers, peeking etc) they will desert anyway and maybe only going in there at night because it is chilly... Are they first timers?

Yep 1st timer's.

Basically incubating 24/7 now

Finch_Breeder wrote:Basically incubating 24/7 now

Now not so much. in fact now their hardly in their nest at all. is this a problem???

Not much you can do about it. The eggs may be infertile, or they may be taking turns at incubating, or just have abandoned the nest altogether. You won't know for sure if they're fertile without candling them, but maybe wait a few days to see how they go.

Niki_K wrote:Not much you can do about it. The eggs may be infertile, or they may be taking turns at incubating, or just have abandoned the nest altogether. You won't know for sure if they're fertile without candling them, but maybe wait a few days to see how they go.

I just candled the eggs, 1 of the eggs has 4 vanes couldn't see any movement, the other on had a dark shape in it with some vanes.

At least you know they're fertile! Don't worry too much about it- as I said before, there isn't much you can do about it. I occasionally have pairs that abandon nests for no apparent reason (with fertile, developing eggs). You won't know for certain til another week or so is up, when they should be hatching. Try not to candle around the 12-15 day mark, as you don't want to risk cracking the shell so close to hatching. They usually hatch at 14 days, but I've had some that hatch at day 16. If it hasn't happened by day 17-18, you know that it's no good and can remove the eggs.

Yesterday I caught them looking at a new nesting site, and today they were mating.
So I guess more eggs in a new nest and they will abandon the old 1???

Possibly. I usually remove (or at least don't give them any more) nesting material once they start laying eggs, as they can become over-enthusiastic and make a new nest over their old and start nesting again.
Zebs can be little oddballs though- I have a fawn female that insists on laying a single egg in every nest that isn't occupied by another pair (in an aviary of 2 pairs, I have 4 nestboxes), but then she and her partner build a nest in the brush I provided. In another case, I had a female lay a clutch of 4 and start incubating (all fertile), then 8 days later laid a 5th egg (again fertile) then no more. A friend mentioned a pair she had that had a clutch of 4, and eggs 2,3 and 4 hatched one day after another, and then the first one did (these eggs were all numbered on the day they were laid).