Ask Lafeber

Zebra Finches Not Incubate Eggs and Not Feeding Newborn Baby

There 4 zebra finches in the my cage (2 male 2 female). The finch hens lays eggs and first baby was born yesterday. There were 3 eggs still remain in the nest too. But none of them incubate the remaining eggs or feeding the newly born baby. Why do they act like that and what should I do
Note – Earlier one hen show some illness and suspected a egg bind. After Calcium was given to her and she laid an egg. She is in good health too. However all finches stopped incubating after that incident.

Hi,

Unfortunately this type thing tends to happen when you have more than one pair in a cage and try to breed them. For breeding, you should only have one pair per cage, with no other birds in the cage. Breeding birds are very territorial and having other birds in the same cage rarely works out. They tend to fight over nests, break each other’s eggs or kill each other’s chicks. In your case, they may have quit the nest because you interfered by helping the other female. If they feel threatened at all, they will abandon the nest even if they have eggs or chicks. There isn’t much you can do because finch chicks usually die when you try to hand feed one, especially from day 1. If they do not go back to the nest and the chick dies, the best thing to do is remove the nests and discard the eggs. If you want to try to let them breed again in the future, you need to remove one of the pairs.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda