Aussie Finch Forum

I noticed on Saturday night that one of my gouldians was out of the nest at around 11pm. not sure how long she had been out for.

I turned the lights on for a while to try and encorage her back in with no luck. There cages were overrun with cockroaches.

She was probably back on them by first light 6.30ish. They were about 7 to 8 days into incubation. The overnight low was about 17. Do these eggs still have any chance?

Cheers
Ian

Hi Ian,
I don't have a definite answer for you, but i would leave them with the birds for now, if they are still living you will see the eggs continue to become a darker colour. Either way it is only another 7-8 days till they should hatch, so it's not that long to wait.
Good luck

As you know finch eggs are small and they aren't able to generate enough heat to warm themselves so they cool quite quickly. The good news is that if the hen hadn't finished laying her clutch then cooling down to an ambient of 15oC for days isn't going to kill it however once the birds start incubating and the embryo is growing then such a temperature is likely to kill it. I can't give you a definative answer (I haven't done this experiment and I don't have an equation and you didn't measure the variables) so all you can do is hope that it's OK you will know if she is incubating and you see the eggs darkening. Lucky for you Gouldians don't mind nest inspections. If there's no change in the eggs after a week, discard them and let her start again. Better spray with some Coopex too to get rid of those roaches too.

Yeah she had finished laying and had been sitting for ~7days. I try and avoid nest inspections... I have the box positioned where it is not easy for me to get to it to avoid temptation I'll check in about 10 days, but was just wondering the likelihood of them surviving.

Well stranger things have happened but if she was off all night from 7 day incubated eggs I would place the odds as pretty low. Worth a try I suppose.

I agree with Greg, but as he said you may as well wait & see. Just check them again when they are due to hatch . If nothing has happened, give them a few extra days. The birds themselves usually stop incubating when they realise the eggs are not viable but sometimes will go through the entire incubation process before getting off!!

Dragging up an old post.

I got one or two fledglings out of that nest. The rest of the eggs were clear.

Cheers
Ian

Good to hear it wasn't a complete loss. And encouraging for anyone else in a similar situation in the future.
LML

If eggs are kept relatively warm you can squeeze up to 10 days out of them.

Hiya,
Just a quick question following on from this. I had juvenile zebbies together while they were colouring up; about 4 hours after separating them today (while cleaning out the aviary), I found a nest with 3 eggs in it! I candled the eggs to see if they were fertile, and 2/3 had vein development (I'd guess that they were about 2 days old based on their development). As I had separated the parents, I decided to try putting the eggs in a nest with foster parents (also zebbies) that had 2 eggs in their nest. I removed those two eggs, as they were cracked, and as soon as I left, the foster dad got in the nest box.
Is it likely that these will survive? They would have been at room temperature for 4-5 hours.
Cheers