Ask Lafeber

dead baby finch still in nest

Hi there ,
There is a dead baby finch in the nest still with 3 healthy babies. Can i remove the dead chick?
What normally causes them to die like this, it looks like it was squashed.

Hi Carol-Ann,

I’m so sorry about the little chick. Yes, you should remove it. It very well may have been crushed by the others. It does happen sometimes, even with the right type of nest. Do you have the hut type nest or is it an open nest? The open nests are intended more for canaries, and finches do better with the little huts. But again, sometimes one gets stuck under the others. And there could have been something wrong with it and it got smushed after it died. Was it the last to hatch? Since the eggs are often laid a day apart, the last to hatch will be much smaller than the others, and sometimes that makes it hard to survive – the larger chicks get the food and climb on top of the littlest one. Hopefully the remaining chicks all do well.

Take care,

Brenda