Aussie Finch Forum

Hi Nathan,

I think the level of nest inspections is a personal choice....I inspect my boxes twice a week....however I know other breeders who inspect far more than this with no issues (complaints from the birds )...experience and time with your birds will tell you how much is appropriate for you and your birds....generally I back off on inspecting first year birds...sometimes I find they are more nervous and less tolerable to nest inspections....having said that I haven't lost too many nests from inspections, but maybe I've been lucky.

The number of inspections are up to you...but so long as you are doing it often enough to know if eggs are fertile (or not) or to remove dead chicks quickly enough from the box then that is fine....it's balancing this with avoiding the possibility of unsettling the birds.

I also try to inspect my boxes first thing in the morning....(I wake my birds up at 4:30AM and I am normally feeding them at 5AM)...so if I do my inspection at 5AM i find that the hen is normally out of the box having her first feed anyway....if i time it right there is less distrurbance...but I don't stress if this doesn't occur.

Cheers,
Paul